


Ebb and Flow

by Sintero



Series: Ravager Ronan [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Coming of age aboard the Eclector, Family Dynamics, M/M, Ravager!Ronan, Yondad, explicit chapters begin when Peter is 17 y/o, please heed the 'underage' tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-06 11:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sintero/pseuds/Sintero
Summary: Nearly twelve solar cycles ago, Ronan --disgraced and stripped of his Accuser title-- found himself unwittingly brought into the fold of Yondu Udonta’s band of Ravagers. It's taken monumental effort to adapt to his newfound role, but life aboard the Eclector has ultimately settled into some sense of normalcy.Leave it to a puling, Terran brat to come along and throw a wrench in the works...





	1. Swapping/Switching (Age 8)

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a Ravager!Ronan AU, written as part of the [Staraccuser Week](http://staraccusevents.tumblr.com/) extravaganza on Tumblr.
> 
> Each chapter is essentially a snapshot of Peter's life as he grows up aboard the Eclector.  
> Themes are as follows:
> 
>  _Swapping/Switching (Age 8):_ T  
>  Yondu hauls in a piece of Terran cargo by the name of Peter Quill and shunts the responsibility of his well-being off on Ronan.  
>  _Bound Part 1 (Age 9):_ T  
>  After crash landing on an outlying planet, Ronan and Peter have a reluctant heart-to-heart.  
>  _Bound Part 2 (Age 10):_ T  
>  Ronan is seriously injured in a job gone wrong.  
>  _Childhood Part 1 (Age 15):_ M  
>  Fed up with Peter's incessant teenage hormones, Yondu sends him to the pleasure district on Contraxia. Instead of partaking, Peter gets some advice.  
>  _Childhood Part 2 (Age 16):_ T  
>  Peter broaches the topic of feelings.  
>  _First times (Age 17):_ E  
>  Peter broaches the topic of feelings and incorporates visuals.  
>  _Differences and Similarities (Age 18):_ E  
>  Peter and Ronan compare notes.  
>  _The 80s (Age 19):_ M  
>  Peter announces his relationship with Ronan to Yondu in the stupidest way possible. Heads roll.
> 
> *If one-sided infatuation (Peter) under the age of 16 offends you, please be cautious. Physical intimacy doesn't take place until Peter is 17 y/o. Chapters are rated as shown above.
> 
> (Thanks to [Prisdreamsbravely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prisdreamsbravely/pseuds/prisdreamsbravely) for her amazing beta superpowers! Go read her works; they're fantastic!)

Swapping/Switching (Age 8)

 

 

Ronan diligently engaged the thrusters, sending the _Elcector_ rocketing up through the atmosphere. Thick cloud cover flowed across the viewport and quickly gave way to licks of flame as the ship punched through and broke orbit. It jettisoned away from Terra, leaving the small, blue planet to twinkle merrily in its blissful ignorance.

Sighing, he glanced about the empty bridge and allowed himself a moment of reflection. It had been twelve long, arduous solar years since he had reluctantly boarded the Ravager ship for the first time. Twelve cycles wherein Yondu had produced a small miracle and managed to browbeat him into something vaguely resembling submission. To break through the bastille-like pride of a disgraced Accuser had been no easy feat, a fact which had earned Ronan’s begrudging respect and eventual loyalty. Displaying Yondu’s particular version of the Ravager regalia on his breast did not fill the void of having disbanded all ties to his Kree House. However, it did serve as a poultice to ease the sting.  

A rash of yellow docking indicators flared along Ronan’s console, breaking him from his reverie and alerting him to his Captain’s return. He swiftly engaged the autopilot and linked all sensor notifications to his portable command bracer. With a smattering of doleful beeps and whistles, the bridge dimmed and the viewport went black.

Ronan unhurriedly made his way down to the belly of the ship where the disembarked crew would likely be. Even so, the length of his casual strides made the lapels of his leather coat flare wide around his bare chest.

“Ronan, sir!” a reedy voice shouted just as he cleared the first bend. A diminutive, plant-like Cotati trotted up and cavorted around his legs. Its leaves rustled in excitement. “The Cap’n needs you!”

Its voice grated, unusually loud in Ronan’s ears and piercing through his mind to leave an unnerving static in its wake. “When has this not been the case?” he ground out without further acknowledgement.

“Yeah, but this time he like, _really_ needs you!” the Cotati continued exuberantly. It bounced on its toes, wide eyes glittering.

The static escalated in Ronan’s mind to the point that his vision began to falter. Why the Kree hadn’t destroyed the telepathic flora in its entirety was beyond him. He pointedly resolved to rectify the situation, given the opportunity.

As it glanced up at Ronan’s impassive face, the Cotati’s broad smile fell in increments. “I’m just a messenger. You don’t haveta be rude about it...or genocidal.”

Jaw clenched, Ronan finally glanced down at the wilting plumes on the Cotati’s oddly humanoid head. “You will cease scanning my thoughts immediately,” he snarled in warning, promptly dismissing the creature as it quailed beneath the challenge of his stare.

The Cotati smartly fell back and adjusted its rolled up sleeves. “You’re a real asshole,” it hissed beneath its breath, black eyes narrowing and root-like toes curling into the metal grate.

Ignoring the angry creaking of bark, Ronan continued on at his leisurely pace and ducked through the hatch of Hangar 32’s depressurization module. The cacophony of hoots and jeers coming from within the hangar bay made him wince and the smell of unwashed bodies took him aback.

Before him, curious crewmates milled about in a kinetic wash of red. When he had first joined the notorious band of pirates, he was in awe of how individuals from such a diverse sundry of species had united in the camaraderie of a shared vision. Hala would never have allowed for such impurity in its ranks. Now, Ronan merely found their mob mentality and insistence on poor hygiene to be taxing at best.

“Move,” he ordered the broad back before him. A massive beast of a humanoid swung back to level him with bared fangs and a guttural growl. Spittle swung from his jutting lower jaw in a pendulous arc. However, as soon as the man realized who it was that had spoken, the fight in him evaporated. He hunched his shoulders with a muttered apology and averted his eyes. Ronan inclined his head briefly, then swept into the open space provided and strode toward the center of the crowd without further incident.

He stopped at the innermost ring of bodies, observing without calling attention to himself.

In the middle of the press, a young Terran boy ducked under Yondu’s outstretched arms and scuttled off between his legs. His wide eyes scanned the crowd for a weakness in the ranks, briefly locking on the place where Ronan towered above the other Ravagers, austere and foreboding. His single heartbeat of hesitation allowed Yondu the chance to sweep around and pull him up short by the back of his baggy shirt. The Terran boy, all knobby limbs and fury, struggled immediately and mule-kicked Yondu in the knee with the speed of a lashing A’askavarian. The crowd howled in laughter.

Yondu staggered, but held firm. “Peter! Damn it, son, would you hold still for one flarking—” he began, but was interrupted by the impact of the Terran’s tiny fist as Peter used his momentum to swing back and land a blow on Yondu’s mouth. He instinctively released Peter’s shirt and shot him filthy glare, brow furrowed.

“Shove it, you big ole smurf!” Peter yelled. Dried lines of salt tracked through the dirt on his face, creased into whisker trails by the fierceness of his snarl. Instead to trying to run, he hurled himself forward and landed another flurry of impotent blows to Yondu’s stomach and thighs. Each impact made a light pattering against his leathers. The sound was reminiscent of footfalls.

Wincing more from second-hand embarrassment than pain, Yondu yanked him around and dropped to one knee in an attempt to lock Peter tightly against his chest in a bear hug.

“Now you listen here, boy,” he snarled, grunting with the effort of holding onto Peter’s wiry frame. His attempt at conversation was rewarded with a sharp set of teeth biting his jacket and pinching the tender skin of his inner elbow underneath.

From beside Ronan, Kraglin snorted and shook his head.

“And precisely how long has this debacle continued?” Ronan asked, lip curled. He crossed his arms across his barrel chest and looked on in thinly veiled disgust.

“The Cap’n’s been tryin’ to wrangle the brat ever since we got back,” Kraglin admitted with a small shrug. “Kid’s tougher than he looks, tha’s for sure.”

“Indeed. Terrans have always been purported to possess exemplary strength and prowess in combat. It’s a small wonder that Udonta has lasted as long as he has,” Ronan retorted with a sneer. Before Kraglin could mirror his put-upon eye-roll, Ronan stepped into the ring and abruptly grabbed Peter by the upper arm. His fist engulfed the limb from elbow to shoulder, unrelenting and as heavy as a shackle. Peter struggled violently against his new assailant, spitting vitriol and lashing out like a whirling dervish. Ronan weathered the storm of impotent fury and cocked his head at Yondu.

“And here you stated that you did not require my services for this mission,” he drawled.

Yondu rubbed a thin trickle of blood from his stubble and offered a crooked smile. “Well, well, if it ain’t my hero! ’Bout damn time you showed up.”

“What is the meaning of this, Udonta?” he asked, indicating Peter by lifting him and letting him dangle by the arm. Peter tried to kick his stomach, but couldn’t reach despite his best efforts.

“Let go! You’re hurting me, jackass!” Peter hollered. He clawed futilely at Ronan’s grip. Ronan’s eyes narrowed on Peter as he struggled, easing his grip slightly and lowering the child such that his toes brushed the ground.

Meanwhile, Yondu scanned the colorful wash of faces around them, his brow furrowed and eyes squinted. “Show’s over. Clear out,” he growled pointedly. The crew members that had lingered for the theatrics sensed the shifting of the tide and immediately vacated the room.

Yondu waited passively for the loud rush of flapping coats and footfalls to fade. He dusted the dirt from his shoulders and made a show of turning out his pockets until he finally adjusted his Captain’s insignia. “Now, I sure as anything know you ain’t questionin’ your Captain in front of his crew like that,” he stated in a dangerously pleasant voice.

“I will question you as I see fit when you are conducting yourself in a manner unbecoming of a Ravager, Udonta. The code states that there is to be no child trafficking, as you are well aware. I will inquire once more, what is the meaning of this?” Ronan pressed, shaking the diminutive Terran for emphasis.

Kraglin lifted a brow and pursed his lips at Yondu’s dangerous grin, circumspectly slipping out of Ronan’s immediate vicinity so as not to be caught in the crossfire.

Yondu stepped close enough that he could study the texture of Ronan’s ceremonial paint if he were so inclined, while still staying mindful of Peter’s swinging legs. He reached up and jabbed his finger against the solid muscle of Ronan’s exposed chest. “You may be my second-in-command, son, and a Kree to boot, but you ain’t my overseer. This here was a rescue mission. I’m just scoopin’ this little shit up before someone bigger and meaner than pretty ol’ me gets the chance.”

Ronan flinched at the combined assault of halitosis and mangled grammar.

“And who, pray tell, could possibly be bigger,” he drawled, pausing for effect, “and meaner than you?”

“That’s on a need to know basis, and you ain’t need to know,” Yondu promptly replied. He flicked Ronan’s chest and glared up at him.

“This is a mistake, Udonta.”

A brooding silence settled between them.

Without warning, Peter swung his legs up and wrapped them around Ronan’s arm, giving him sufficient leverage to bite down on his hand with surprising force. Ronan spared him a glance before returning his attention to Yondu. “A mistake we should rectify by throwing this creature out of the airlock,” he stated dryly.   

Laughing uproariously, Yondu bent over and braced his hands on his knees until he could do no more than wheeze. He straightened and wiped the moisture from his eyes, only to burst out in merriment once more.

“We got us here a regular goddamn comedian! I knew I kept you around for somethin’, son,” he choked out. Shaking his head, Yondu strode past Ronan and clapped a hand on Kraglin’s shoulder to steer him towards the hatchway.

Ronan lowered his brows and snarled at the abrupt dismissal. His hand continued to ache from where Peter had latched on and refused to let go. “How fortunate for me. However, I believe you are forgetting your Terran charity case,” he stated coldly.

“Nah, the kid’s your problem now, on account of being more familiar with the _Code_ and all. You see to it he’s taken care of, Ronan. Brought up right and proper,” Yondu shot back over his shoulder. His retreating footfalls rang out in measured rhythm against the grate.

 "Absolutely not!” The rumbling threat inherent in Ronan’s denial went unheeded. “Yondu, this is intolerable.”

 “Nah. ’S cute how he thinks he’s got a choice!” Yondu roared, laughing and lightly backhanding Kraglin in his mirth. Kraglin staggered back and rubbed his skinny chest with an answering smirk.

As the hatch swung open before him, Yondu glanced back and waggled a finger at Peter. “Now, you start up all of that boo-hooin’ nonsense again, this here Kree’s gonna eat ya. He ain’t never tasted Terran before!” Shooting an exaggerated wink at Ronan, he slipped through the doorway, coattails slapping the hull as he jauntily leapt over the upraised lip.

The simmering rage in Ronan’s painted face made Peter balk. He silently released his hold on the massive arm restraining him and settled the soles of his sneakers back to the floor. His Walkman swung from his too-big jeans and he protectively held it close with his free hand.

Ronan leveled him with a glare and pulled his lips back into a threatening snarl. His dark sclera and equally black teeth were sufficiently terrifying to curb Peter’s tears. Instead, he was rewarded with the acrid scent of urine.

 

***

 

“Get off of me, dude!” Peter yelled, kicking and flailing wildly. When his struggles failed to elicit any reaction, he let his body go completely lax and hung from Ronan’s grip by his wrist. Ronan continued down the corridor without altering his stride. Peter’s dead weight dragged along the floor with a rhythmic thump as his sneakers caught each strut of the metal grate.

“Help! Stranger danger!” Peter began yelling at each crew member they passed. A panoply of eyes glinted from cracked hatchways along the main hall of the housing ring, accompanied by the occasional deep guffaw.

“Cease your incessant prattling, child,” Ronan growled. His chiding tone only made Peter ratchet his volume higher.

“This guy’s gonna eat me! Somebody call the space cops!” he near screamed, voice breaking. He pried at Ronan’s unremitting grasp to no avail.

Ronan came to a standstill and dropped Peter unceremoniously to the ground. His back hit the grate hard enough to stun him for a brief moment. That was all the time Ronan needed to drop to one knee, grab Peter’s shoulders, and pull him back upright. Ronan stooped further down until they were of a similar height. He stared into Peter’s watery gaze and ignored the way the child’s chest rattled with each breath. The sharp, acrid scent of urine accosted him once again, potent even over the already ripe scent of Ravager and engine grease.

“You will be silent now and heed my words, Terran. I am not responsible for your ill-advised abduction. Nor am I responsible for your continued tenure on the _Eclector_ , however long it may prove to be. It is my goal to be rid of you as expeditiously as possible. Until the time comes that Captain Udonta repeals his orders, I will see to it that your basic needs are met. However, rest assured, I am as dissatisfied with this situation as you. Now, you will cease your piteous quavering, follow me to the showers, and cleanse that foul odor from your body without further incident. Do I make myself clear?”

Peter chewed on lower lip and stared at Ronan blankly, eyes glazed.

Ronan sighed. “You do not understand what I have said,” he concluded. He allowed his hands to slip from Peter’s shoulders in favor of sinking his face into his palms.

“Nope,” Peter admitted with a half-hearted shrug.

He scanned the railing of the suspended walkway they stood atop of. The vast belly of the _Eclector_ , with its thrumming engines and flickering lights, was overwhelmingly alien as it stretched around them. The realization that he was likely never going back to Earth hit him like a freight train.

His voice fell to a near whisper. “I don’t understand anything. I just wanna go home.” The uncomfortable wetness of his pants was forgotten as the flood of emotion tore an unexpected sob from his chest.

“Child, you will come to find that ‘home’ is a luxury best left forgotten.” With that, he dropped his hands to his knee and used the added leverage to stand. Peter continued to furiously blink the tears from his eyes and wiped his nose on his already filthy shirt sleeve.

“Now, come. The showers are this way,” Ronan continued, tossing his head to indicate the left fork in the gangway ahead. Head bowed and shoulders trembling with each snuffle, Peter tentatively reached out and tried to take Ronan’s hand. Ronan grimaced at the stickiness of it as he shook off Peter’s hold.

His blunt rejection was apparently devastating if Peter’s renewed tears were anything to go by. Ronan deigned to comfort him.

The remainder of the walk was made in silence.

When they reached the showering facilities and Ronan abruptly shoved Peter into the cold spray, the resultant yelp almost made the past solar hour of unpleasantness worth it.

Almost.

***

 

The dining table in Ronan’s quarters was modestly sized, but sufficient to host a large platter of pale meat, drenched in a strangely lumpy sauce, plates of alien vegetables, and a generous decanter of iridescent, blue drink. Peter watched as Ronan arranged them all to his liking, then settled into the chair across the table.

Peter scanned the spread critically and scowled. “Nope, screw you!” he protested vehemently. He picked at a thread on his lightweight t-shirt, an unwitting gift from a creature that Ronan had called ‘Cotati’ while threatening it with grievous bodily harm. He didn’t know if that was its name or an insult.

“Dude, this broccoli is _blue_.”

“This is _deswali_ , it is supposed to be blue,” Ronan stated as he tossed a spear-like eating utensil across the table. It slid the last handspan with an ear piercing shriek until it butted up against Peter’s plate.

“I don’t care— I’m not eating it and you can’t make me,” Peter pronounced in turn.

Quaffing his drink with uncharacteristic gusto, Ronan hissed against the heat that raced down his throat and bloomed in his stomach like a firestorm. He closed his eyes until he relearned how to breathe, then refilled his glass. The decanter rattled as he set it down. “You will eat what is given to you or you will starve,” he rasped, voice raw from the potency of the liquor.

“Then I guess I’ll starve!” Peter yelled. He crossed his arms across his skinny chest and jutted his lower lip, but made no move to leave the table.

Ronan shrugged his massive shoulders and fingered the contours of his glass flute. It had been quite some time since he had last allowed himself to drink to the point of intoxication. Incidentally, after that  last ill-advised indulgence, he had woken up wearing Ravager red instead of his Accuser garb. He eyed his glass contemplatively and knocked back the contents.

“Very well.”

“Fine.”

The freckles on Peter’s cheeks stood out like sun spots against the angry flush that suffused his face. He fidgeted in his chair as Ronan served himself and ate with intricate and refined delicacy. The purple sauce on Ronan’s plate smelled like baked cranberries and cinnamon. Peter’s stomach growled audibly.

“Can’t I try some of what you’ve got? It smells good,” he asked, curling in slightly and locking his sullen gaze on the mushy pile of vegetables before him.

Ronan silently reached over and held up a stalk of deswali from Peter’s plate with one hand while he continued to take dainty bites of his own meal with the other. The vegetable hung limp in the air for a long moment without wavering. Grinding his teeth, Peter snatched it out from between Ronan’s fingertips and shoved the whole floret into his mouth. His cheeks pouched out comically.

“Happy?” he asked, voice muffled by the generous mouthful.

“Indubitably,” Ronan replied.

Pleased at his small victory in their battle of wills, Ronan allowed himself a sly smirk and speared another sauce-drenched morsel from his own plate. He studied the cube of tender, white meat on his utensil and breathed deeply of its subtle aroma, then popped it into his mouth. He chewed with an exaggerated groan.

Peter pulled his shoulders up to his ears and shot him a red-faced glare. Gulping hugely, he opened his mouth wide to indicate that he had swallowed, then reached across the table and hooked his fingers on the rim of the serving plate of meat with the intent of pulling it closer. The single tong of Ronan’s utensil clicked against the platter, speared neatly between Peter’s fingers. Without a word, he reclaimed his spear-like implement and stared at his charge from beneath hooded brows.

“You are not yet finished, Terran,” he observed.

With a huff, Peter reluctantly picked up a fistful of the detested vegetable that looked like broccoli and tasted like rat droppings and shoved it all into his mouth. He held eye-contact the entire time in challenge. Predictably, he choked while Ronan observed impassively.

Once the spasms had passed and Peter had thoroughly communicated his resentment via a watery glare, Ronan slid the platter over to his side of the table. “Very good. You will find that deference to my will shall serve you far better than this immature petulance that you so favor,” he stated with a slight inclination of his head. He continued to consume his meal with slow, measured grace.

“You use really big words and you’re a real dick,” Peter replied, ruddy cheeked and trembling despite his daring words. He took a tentative first bite of the meat. The earthy burst of flavor on his tongue, reminiscent of pine nuts, drove him to devour it in earnest. It wasn’t pizza, but it was a far cry better than deswali.

The juxtaposition between their eating habits did not go unnoted. Though, some lessons could wait.

Ronan took a fortifying breath. “Do as I say and you might survive your childhood,” he tried again, in simpler terms. His gruff statement brought Peter to a gaping, wide-eyed standstill. A dollop of sauce dripped from his slack lips onto the tabletop. He set the slice of meat he was gnawing on back onto his plate and stared down at it. “But that other blue guy said you weren’t allowed to throw me into space or whatever,” he argued.  

Taking yet another sip of his iridescent blue liquor, Ronan swirled the viscous drink and watched it coat the inner surface of his glass. The red shock of Peter’s hair took on a purple cast through the glass. “Yes, but there are numerous methods by which to accidentally dispose of a disobedient, Terran brat.”

Peter blinked rapidly and pushed the serving platter away. It made a harsh shriek against the glass table. He reluctantly picked up another stalk of deswali between his thumb and index finger instead. The next few moments were spent nibbling on it quietly.

Ronan grunted his approval, after which the remainder of their meal passed unremarkably.

 

***

 

Later that evening, Ronan pensively considered the hanging ventilation cover on the bulkhead separating his bathroom from the remainder of his quarters. Black scuff marks indicated where small, Terran footwear had scrambled up the wall and squeezed through the rather tight aperture. It _had_ been suspiciously quiet in his quarters. He raised his glass and swallowed the last dregs of his drink. The edges of the room wavered slightly, but nowhere near enough for his taste.

Ronan shook his head and made his way to his spartan bedroom, stumbling twice, but catching himself on the hull each time. Yondu was going to kill him in the morning, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. The angry little child had torn open wounds that he had long since thought healed. To think, the future of his proud lineage had been reduced to something as shameful as an abducted Terran brat.

He sat down heavily on his bed, the firm mattress bowing beneath his weight with a sympathetic groan. For a long moment he simply stared at the smooth, metallic surface of the hull, unblinking.

“You are pathetic,” he pronounced to the room at large. His deep baritone resonated long after he stopped speaking.

The coat on his back hung heavily from his shoulders, so he removed it and absently rubbed the upraised swell of scar tissue and tattoos along his ribs. Each sharp line of ink told a story of conquest and honor from a life long left behind. Fury began to simmer beneath Ronan’s breast at the reminder of what he had lost.

“This is ridiculous,” he growled, baring his teeth to the empty room. “Ravager or not, you are still Kree. Without duty, you are nothing.”

He swiftly pulled up the display on his command bracer and stared at the garishly yellow Centaurian alphabet until his universal translator kicked in and resolved the readout into something intelligible. It was simplicity itself to scan the _Eclector_ for Terran genetics. However, the probe flickered as if detecting a weakened signal. Ronan tapped his bracer, but the readout remained at half-strength. Regardless, he had a locus wherein to start his search.

He unsteadily rose to his feet and paused to let the swirling room settle. The lingering scent of deswali and soap made his eyes narrow. He had to find the child. On impulse, he pinched one of the ill-formed scars on his ribs and twisted until the pain speared through the haze of inebriation.

When the effect failed to linger, Ronan rooted through a small set of drawers near his bed and retrieved a stimulant typically reserved for extended missions. He jammed it into his neck, just beneath his jaw, and grit his teeth against the hiss of the injection. His hearts stuttered for a handful of beats and his pupils blew wide until every last trace of purple was eclipsed by black.

Later he would pay for the excessive cardiac load of mixing stimulants with depressants. Luckily, the Kree were a sturdy race and Ronan, especially so. He only hoped that Terrans were as well.

His focus narrowed to the dolefully blinking light on his bracer that indicated where his charge had most likely fled. Then, he ran.

 

***

 

Though it was relatively late in the day/night cycle Yondu had imposed aboard the _Elcector_ , Ravagers continued to mill about in small groups throughout the common areas. Their conversations petered out quickly in favor of diving to the ground or flattening themselves against the hull as Ronan came whipping through like a man possessed.

His heavy footfalls were cacophonously loud on the metal grate and his breath came in great gales, reminiscent of the roaring of a Wugin firestorm.

The crew members picked themselves up with a litany of groans and expletives and followed the retreating blue blur with their eyes. Ronan was surprisingly fast for his size.  

He continued to rush through the corridors and out onto one of the gangways that pierced through the belly of the _Eclector._ It shuddered beneath his weight. Then, he braced himself against the railing, one-handed, and leapt over.

His impact dented the strut on which he landed, but he rolled with the momentum so that it did not buckle entirely. Rust clung to his back, but he paid it no heed. His bracer indicated that he was close.

He whipped around a hatch and bounded into the same engine bay wherein which Yondu’s M-ship sat like a great illuminated beast in the gloom. If his tongue and nose weren’t already scorched by the metallic effusion of the stimulant pumping in his veins, the pervasive scent of fuel would have near overwhelmed him.

“Terran!” he roared into the dark hangar. Blood pounded in his ears, near deafening, but not so much so that he couldn’t hear the panicked hisses of “oh shit” from across the room.

Ronan rounded a pile of metal storage bins and towered over the tableau taking place behind them, his muscular body backlit and imposing.

Peter lay on the dirty floor, curled into himself to make as small of a target as possible. Dark purple bruises mottled what swatches of skin were exposed and oozed bright red blood. There was no telling what his body looked like beneath his borrowed clothing. The brief flicker of anger fell from Ronan’s face to be replaced by a sudden, foreboding flatness. His attention swiftly shifted to the pair of Ravagers looming over his charge.

“Uh, hi, Second, sir. Always nice to see you,” a sallow-skinned Ravager greeted him tremulously. His whisker-like filaments wavered and flattened when Ronan did not return the sentiment. The man’s companion, a hulking figure whose frills and green skin suggested a distant Skrull ancestor in his lineage, stepped over Peter and stood not a handspan from Ronan’s chest. His breath hung stale between them.   

“You’re not welcome here, Kree. You’d best mind your own business. Yondu said we could keep whatever we found on Terra. You let it go, so this meatsack is ours now,” he snarled. His partner grabbed his coat sleeve and gave a sharp tug.

“Are you fucking crazy, T’zane? That’s _Ronan_!” he hissed in a panic. He flapped his free hand at Ronan in a way that he hoped was placating. “Second, sir, please don’t mind my friend. He’s an idiot. We didn’t realize that you still wanted the thing. It’s all yours!”

T’zane shoved his companion back hard enough that he staggered and fell against a storage container. “Like hell it is! We tracked the little shit down and ferreted him out fair and square!” he roared, then, bolstered by his own conviction, placed a meaty hand on Ronan’s bare chest and shoved.

Ronan did not so much as sway beneath the blow. “You are quite mistaken,” he purred. His lips spread wide in a smile more terrifying than any threat.

On the floor, Peter peered up from between the cracks of his fingers. He let out a pitiful whimper, his voice so small compared to his prior inflated bravado, and tried to scramble out of the line of fire.

Without hesitation, Ronan snatched T’zane by the wrist and wrenched the beast of a man forward and away from his charge. He used the man’s substantial weight to gain momentum and spin him off balance, then mercilessly brought his fist down on the brute’s elbow joint. The resultant pop rang out like the retort of a concussion rifle, followed by a sharp yelp. Ronan cocked his arm back and struck again, lightning fast. This time, T’zane’s howl of agony masked the wet sucking sound and the cracking of bone, but not the coppery scent of blood.

Peter scrambled away from the green limb as it fell and splattered just shy of his face. Breath hitching, he moaned pitifully and staggered to his feet. His back slammed against the wall as he watched on in horror.  

Meanwhile, Ronan ignored T’zane’s frantic thrashing and let him fall bonelessly to the ground. The beast clutched his spurting residual limb against his chest and screamed as he rocked. His partner’s attempts to get him to his feet and to the infirmary failed to pierce through his pain-wracked panic.

“Pathetic.” Ronan scoffed at the pitiful display and turned to approach Peter, where he quavered and shook against the wall. He settled down onto one knee before the boy and touched the back of Peter’s hands where they firmly covered his face.  

“Terran,” he began, attempting to keep his voice soft despite the thrumming rage of adrenaline beneath his skin which ignited every vein in his body. “Child, look at me.”

Peter shook his head violently and pressed against the wall at his back in a desperate bid to push through it. Ronan pulled at his wrists until Peter, exhausted, let them fall. His nails had left crescent moons imprinted in his skin, visible despite the bruising on his cheekbone.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen. Please don’t kill me,” he pleaded, unable to rally the courage to look up.

Ronan sighed as, in an instant, the fight left him despite the continued pulse of the artificial stimulant. His chest felt leaden and hollow. “It is not my intention to harm you. As my charge, it is my duty to see that you remain safe for the duration of your tenure here,” he replied. He shifted his weight and sunk down until he was sitting on his heels.

Peter smartly deigned to comment, but couldn’t contain the huff of disbelief. Realizing what he had done, he wrapped his arms around his stomach and pulled his shoulders up to his ears. The expected blow against which he braced himself, did not fall.

Instead, Ronan flicked a dollop of blood from his forearm and reached forward to readjust the walkman hanging precariously from Peter’s pants. “You are right to be suspicious. I have been remiss in my obligations, an oversight I assure you will not happen again.”

“You promise you ain’t gonna eat me or nothin’?” he asked tearfully.

Ronan sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I give you my word, child. Now, come,” he commanded. He attempted to soften his tone, but his words still rumbled in a vaguely threatening manner.

Even so, Peter latched on tightly to the sole promise of protection offered to him in a nightmare world filled with aliens and violence. He tentatively reached out and took Ronan’s hand just as he had done prior that evening.

Ronan reluctantly allowed the contact this time and unfolded to his full height. Peter’s attention flickered up the solid definition of his exposed torso, to his completely black eyes, and back down to settle on the floor.

“I still don’t have a clue what you’re sayin’. You need to learn to talk like a real person,” he muttered as he pointedly turned away from the trail of dark green blood staining the floor. “And I have a name, you know. It’s Peter.”

Mildly impressed at Peter’s daring, Ronan nodded down at him.

“Well met, Peter. I am Ronan.”


	2. Bound Part 1 (age 9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After crash landing on an outlying planet, Ronan and Peter have a reluctant heart-to-heart. Rated T

Bound Part 1 (age 9)

 

“I can’t hit it,” Peter whined piteously as another plasma bolt shot off into the forest. It’s trajectory glowed a blinding yellow in the darkness before fading out and leaving only an afterimage. Broad plant fronds rustled in the distance. He kicked at the detritus on the ground, shoulders slumped.  

“Here, you do it,” he muttered, spinning in place and thrusting the quad blaster out towards Yondu. 

Yondu leapt out of the path of the ignition barrel and snatched Peter’s wrist. 

“Damn it, boy, how many times I got to tell you not to point blasters at people?” he hissed. “Now, you get on over here.” 

Running a hand across his face at his near brush with death, Yondu mentally cursed nine-year-old Terrans everywhere. He knelt down in the dirt and tugged Peter closer, readjusting their positions so that Peter’s back rested against the front of his leathers. His chin settled against Peter’s shoulder, close enough that his breath warmed Peter’s neck. Squinting to line up the target— a mound of plant matter illuminated by moonlight not ten paces away—Yondu slowly raised Peter’s arm and took aim. 

“You see that there groove in the top?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Peter drawled, secretly rolling his eyes. 

“You gotta put what yer aimin’ for right in the end of that little tunnel.” 

Peter fidgeted and tried to dip his shoulder away from Yondu’s ticklish stubble. “Duh. I know that much,” he griped. 

“If you knew so flarkin’ much, you wouldn’t be takin’ out half of the damn flora. Now, once you got that target in yer sights, you gotta’ squeeze that trigger real slow and even like. Firing blasters is like giving Ronan orders, son. You gotta be real gentle, finesse ‘em a bit, otherwise yer gonna lose a hand,” Yondu explained, chuckling at his own joke.

When Peter didn’t join in, he sighed and tapped his wrist. “Just pull the stupid trigger.”   

A bright bolt of energy hit the plant matter dead center and set it ablaze with an electric crackle. Peter whooped and jumped up excitedly, slamming into Yondu’s jaw and shooting an errant bolt into the ground in the process. Yondu hissed and quickly wrenched Peter away from the super-heated spray of dirt. It pattered against his coat like rain drops. 

Peter froze and let Yondu wrench the blaster out of his limp grasp. The subsequent string of curses and expletives was enough to make his ears ring. 

“Sorry, jeez. It was just an accident,” he grumbled, palms raised in placation. 

Yondu grabbed the implant on his head with both hands and hollered unintelligibly into the night.

 

***

 

When the moon had shifted a couple of handspans in the sky, they abandoned their target practice in favor of sharing a stale ration pack in front of the merrily crackling fire. 

Despite the fact that they had crash-landed on a, so far as he knew, uninhabited planetoid, Peter couldn’t remember being so content. He could have forgone the brutal impact of their M-ship with the ground. And being serenaded by Ronan’s detailed exposition of every way in which the engine malfunction was Yondu’s fault wasn’t exactly fun either. But, everything else had felt like a father-son camping trip. Or, what he imagined one would feel like.

He bumped Yondu’s arm with his shoulder and happily gnawed on his unidentified piece of dehydrated meat. 

Peter managed to swallow despite the taste.“Where’s Ro? You think he got lost?”

Yondu shrugged and chewed with a near inappropriate amount of relish. “Dunno,” he admitted around his mouthful. “Maybe you took him out when you was shooting.” The corner of his eyes crinkled as he grinned down at Peter.

Peter sighed dramatically and tossed a handful of fibrous plant matter into the blaze. It flared up impressively as it caught.

“I’m gettin’ better,” he argued.

“Sure ya are, son. But, I’m not so sure those burnt trees would be agreein’ with you,” Yondu quipped in return. The gentle ribbing won a cheerful bark of laughter from Peter.

“But seriously, where’s Ro?” he asked once he had sobered. “I mean, he’s been kinda an ass lately. Like, even more of one than usual. And I know he doesn’t really like me, but you’d think he'd hang out with us for a little bit or something before Krags comes to get us.”

Yondu stared at him for a long moment, his smile faltering. He sized Peter up, from his messy hair to his too large coat, and further down, to the scuffed knees of his leathers. He frowned at whatever conclusion he had reached and returned his attention to the fire.

“He’s probably just got some stuff that needs workin’ out, same as you, boy,” he grunted.

“Huh? I ain’t got nothing to work out.”

Yondu bowed over his crossed legs and settled his elbows on his knees. As he did so, a couple of his salvaged console trinkets tumbled from his breast pocket. With a grimace, he gathered them up and shoved them into his coat’s inner lining instead. However, he lingered on the last trinket, a worse for wear doll from Terra that Peter had claimed was the ‘manliest troll of them all.’

Peter’s eyes widened as he caught sight of it. He had bartered the nude, pink- haired monstrosity in exchange for the sudden, inexplicable loss of a shipment of deswali. Seeing it once more brought back memories of warm milk and falling asleep to the sound of cicada song, settling in his gut like stones.  

His shocked remembrance was abruptly interrupted by Yondu’s unconvinced grunt.  

“Nothin’ to work out, eh? You and he ain’t so different. Don’t let that jackass exterior fool ya. He’s hurtin’ inside, just like you, son.” Yondu stared off into the darkness, eyes glowing like red beacons in the light of the flickering fire. In that instance, he appeared older and more haggard than Peter had ever seen him.

Peter opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it. He flicked another stick into the fire and watched as green sparks erupted and quickly fizzled out.

Yondu continued unabated. “This is a hard day for him. ’‘S an anniversary of sorts, but not the good kind. You won’t ever catch me admittin’ to it, but I try to go easy on the poor bastard ‘round this time.” He snorted and smiled grimly at the troll figure cupped in his palms. Its pink hair stuck out at odd angles around its cherubic face. A line of char cut across its chest like a brand.   

He abruptly tossed it to Peter. “Here, son. I reckon there’s someone who needs a little cheerin’ up. Maybe you can barter that thing off for a little less flarkin’ attitude.”

Peter fumbled the small doll and picked it up out of the dirt. He dusted it off and rubbed out the black line of ash with his thumb until it shined.

“What makes you think I can do that? I’m just a kid. Ro can’t even stand me half the time,” he muttered, trying not to let on how much Ronan’s standoffishness got under his skin.

Yondu’s hoarse laugh cut through his maudlin thoughts.

“Son, that Kree likes you well enough. I reckon he’s a right bit more comfortable with you than any other son of a bitch on the _Elcector_ , me included.” He grinned and his quirked lips crinkled the network of scars along his temple until they appeared to gape grotesquely in the deep shadows.

Yondu shuffled awkwardly in his coat, patting down the sides of his vest until his hands caught on a small, ornate box. “Here, take this too and get goin’. I was gonna wait until we was back home, but I think you’ll have better luck givin’ this to the head-strong bastard than me,” he said with a toss of his head. Without even glancing up, he wrenched the box free from his pocket and flicked it towards Peter’s hands. Peter fumbled the box as well, but managed to catch it and pull it tightly against his chest before it hit the ground. He peeked down at it and marveled at the sleek, black surface.

“It’s really pretty,” he observed. “What is it?”

“’S nothin’ to concern yourself with, boy. Just give it to Ronan when you see him." Yondu grunted.

“Yeah. Okay.” Peter shrugged and stuffed it into his satchel along with the Troll Doll and two packs of travel rations. He waved over his shoulder in parting and leapt over a felled tree, trotting off into the moonlit forest to find his reluctant caretaker.

Glowing fronds of flora illuminated patches of the forest floor in a pulsing red wash of color. At Peter’s passing, they rose and reached out with questing tendrils to lace about his boot straps. He hurriedly shook them off and took off at a healthy jog, bag bouncing against his thigh with each stride.  

After a short time, the eerie glow of the forest gave way to a rocky terrain where nothing grew. The pumice-like stone cracked and buckled beneath his feet. His boots found little purchase, but he managed to crest the gentle slope by bear-crawling over the steepest parts. He leapt over the crest and slid down to the bottom of the ravine where their M-ship lay in ruin. There, Ronan sat atop a patch of undamaged hull, head tilted up to bask in the light of the planet’s solitary moon.

Peter managed to climb atop the wreckage with more determination than skill. Rough metal edges cut into his palms and knees, but he wedged his small fingers into the grooves between hull panels and scaled it regardless. He threw his body over the top edge and pulled and wriggled until his legs joined him atop the plinth. Ronan remained entirely impassive while he struggled to right himself.

Finally, Peter plopped down next to him. “Hey, Ro,” he chirped in greeting. No answer was immediately forthcoming. He frowned and bumped his shoulder into Ronan’s side. “I said ‘hey,’” he repeated.

“What precisely do you want, Quill? I do not have the patience to weather your idiocy this evening,” Ronan growled, turning his attention from the brilliantly illuminated night sky down to his charge. Peter blinked owlishly and shuffled close enough to feel the heat of Ronan’s thigh against his own.

He rooted through his satchel and brought out the vacuum sealed packets of field rations. “I brought you dinner,” he announced as he offered over the shiny containers. Ronan paid them no heed. He stared down at Peter, face strangely open without his ceremonial paint. It had been several solar days since he had apparently chosen to forgo his typical facial markings, but the effect was still jarring.

“I am not hungry,” Ronan replied simply. “If that is all, you may go.” His baritone voice carried effortlessly over the whistle of the wind.

Peter tried to tug his haphazard hair back into order. “Okay. Well, um, I do have something else for you, too,” he admitted. Before Ronan could ask, he pulled out the singed Troll Doll and shoved it into his hands. Ronan glanced down at it, uncomprehending.

“This is the trinket that you gifted to Udonta. What am I to do with this?” he asked, eyes narrowing. The doll looked so small in his palm.

“Uh. Yondu’s got plenty of stuff on his work station, ya know? I figured you could use something. For good luck and stuff...when we get back,” Peter explained haltingly. He plucked at the seam on his coat sleeve, a nervous behavior harkening back to long before his abduction from Terra.

“Luck is for the weak of will,” Ronan pronounced, rejecting the doll and dropping it between Peter’s knees. “Perhaps you should keep it for yourself.”

Peter tried not to let the gibe get under his skin, but it struck with such vigor that he couldn’t help but curl around his imagined wound. “I just thought—” he started, only to be promptly interrupted.

“That was your first mistake. I will not tell you again, child. Leave me.”

Tears welled in Peter’s eyes, unbidden, but he was well- practiced in the art of gritting his teeth and viciously blinking them away. “Fine, be a dick. What do I care?” he hissed as he gathered his doll and climbed to his feet. He reached into his satchel and threw the little black box against the hull hard enough to make a resounding gong-like call. “Yondu wanted me to give you that.”

Ronan’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked rapidly back and forth between Peter’s retreating back and the container before him. The ornate lid was inlaid with a red symbol of stark and severe interlocking V’s.

“Peter, wait!” Ronan called out. “Where did you acquire this?” He picked up the little box and brought it to his chest, bowing his head until the cool lid butted up against his chin.

Peter paused right at the edge of the plinth. “I just told you. Yondu gave it to me to give to you,” he said with a half-hearted shrug. The moonlight caressed the contours of his slender shoulders and only served to emphasize his youth in that moment.

“Come here,” Ronan ordered softly.

The uncharacteristic softness of his voice brought Peter up short. “Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“Because I requested it,” Ronan replied. He gestured for Peter to approach and shifted his attention to the obsidian contours of the box in his hands. With delicacy, he traced the inlaid insignia until it began to glow. The lid popped open with a subtle hiss.

Intrigued, Peter returned to his side and peeked over Ronan’s shoulder. Inside the box was a thick substance so black that it seemed to swallow the bright glow of the moon above. There was something strangely haunting about the contents, though Peter knew it was likely benign if Ronan was willing to share the box’s little secret with him.

 "What is it?”

In lieu of answering, Ronan dipped his index finger in and gathered up a small dollop, smearing it across the pad of his thumb to test the consistency. Satisfied, he raised his fingers to his face and began to draw lines arching down from his eyes in a simulacrum of tears.

Peter grunted in surprise. It was nothing more than the paint that Ronan donned every morning.  

“That’s just your dude makeup. What’s so special about it?” he asked, walking around Ronan’s folded knees to watch him apply it. The edges of the pattern wavered as Ronan continued, though Peter couldn’t tell if the mistakes were intentional. Everything was purposeful and precisely controlled when it came to Ronan.

“I am not willing to divulge the specific meaning inherent in this gift. However, I will say that it has great value to my people, the Kree. That Yondu would obtain it...that you would then gift it...” His voice trailed off as he swallowed down the overwhelming sentiment slamming against his ribs.

Peter caught the visible shake of Ronan’s hand as he reached for another smear of paint. He darted forward and smacked Ronan’s wrist out of the way.

“The Kree ain’t your people. Me and Yondu are your people. Now, gimme that. You’re messing it up,” Peter chided him.

Stunned, Ronan allowed him to take the box from his slack fingers. The paint inside was viscous, but slick, and rolled off of his finger on the first try. On the second, he was more careful and managed to scoop up a small bit without it flowing from his index finger.

Ronan’s brow rose and his eyes widened comically as Peter leaned forward and took over applying his ceremonial paint, as if by right. Freezing in place with his small hand hovering in the space between them, Peter finally realized how brazen he was being. It was too late to back down without losing face, so he pushed on in the hope that the repercussions for his daring would be minimal.

“You should, um, close your eyes so I can get it all,” he suggested, proud that there was only a small quaver in his voice. Thankfully, Ronan did as requested. Peter sighed in relief at no longer being pierced through by his unnerving, purple gaze.

Ronan’s skin was much rougher than his own and took the greasy paint readily. Taking his time, Peter traced the cupid’s bow of his lips and scooped under his chin, following it down to the prominence of his adam’s apple. His fingers bobbed as Ronan swallowed. Luckily, Ronan’s eyes remained screwed tightly shut, so Peter’s embarrassed blush went unremarked. He briefly gathered another dollop and set to work on the rest of the intimately familiar design.

The scuffling of Peter’s boots and Ronan’s oddly labored breath were the only sounds exchanged between them until the job was done.

“There. Now you don’t look so weird,” Peter stated, rubbing his fingers clean on his shirt. The soft, barely there smile that he received in turn was a gift more rare than any other and sent Peter’s heart racing. Ronan was his larger than life caretaker, a contrary jackass, and the general scourge of the entire Ravager fleet. His name often wasn’t even spoken loudly aboard the _Eclector_ in fear of accidentally summoning the man himself. But, he was one half of the only family that Peter had and his approval meant everything.

Fidgeting under the unfettered acceptance in Ronan’s expression, Peter closed the ornate box and handed it back.

“So, uh, what is that stuff, anyway?” he asked in an attempt to battle the awkward urge to ask for a hug that he knew would never be given. Instead, he rubbed his arms against the chill in the air. 

Ronan raised a brow, his smile growing. He casually reached up and smeared the excess paint from his thumb and forefinger across Peter’s cheek in a set of parallel lines. “It is a mixture of Xandarian blood and finely ground Terran skull, of course.” 

“Are you kidding me right now?” Peter yelled explosively into the still night. In an instant, all of the good will that he had felt towards Ronan was quickly repealed. However, he was brought up short by the hoarse chuckle that grew in volume until the richness of Ronan’s mirth threatened to overwhelm him. 

In a flash, Ronan rose to his knees and pulled Peter flush against his chest, where he froze in shock. The skin against his cheek was preternaturally hot and thrummed with the strong beat of Ronan’s hearts.

“I am. I most assuredly am, my child,” Ronan replied once his baritone laughter had petered out. “Why would I ever adorn myself with the remains of such a pathetic species?” The strength of his embrace belied the harshness of his words.

Peter continued to stand stiffly without knowing where to put his hands and wondered whether Ronan would come back to his obviously abandoned senses if he were to return the gesture. “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled half-heartedly into Ronan’s solid shoulder instead.

Heavy fingers carded through Peter’s hair. “Thank you, Peter. Truly,” Ronan rumbled.

Nodding and trying to swallow against the tightness in his throat, Peter finally allowed himself to melt bonelessly against his caretaker.

“Welcome,” he muttered. “You’re still a dick, though.”


	3. Bound Part 2 (Age 10)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan is seriously injured in a job gone wrong. Rated T

Bound Part 2 (Age 10)

 

 

“You promised! You fucking promised!” Peter screamed as he fought off the clutching hands that sought to restrain him. 

Ronan’s limp wrist was abruptly pulled from his grasp as the stretcher progressed through the hall, borne away by medical bay personnel. The Kree laid out upon it looked just as stately as always. His composed austerity still commanded respect despite the haphazard sway of his arms as they dangled off of the sides of the gurney, slack in repose. Dark blood dripped from his fingertips in measured rhythm, staining the metal grate of the corridor like a morbid trail of breadcrumbs.

“You promised, you jackass!” Peter hollered once more at the retreating figures. With an inarticulate shriek, he fell upon the firm hands that held him back like a thing possessed. It didn’t matter if they belonged to his adoptive father or Thanos himself, flesh could be bitten and it could bleed. Yondu swore mightily and crushed Peter face-first into his leather-bound chest in an attempt to contain the whirlwind of adolescent Terran rage.

His crew hovered about, watching the spectacle unfold until a stony crimson glare sent them hastily on their way.

“Damn it, Quill!” he ground out in helpless frustration. His words were cut off by a flurry of sharp elbow-blows to the stomach. The situation was beyond his scope. No Ravager Captain had ever been forced to deal with the emotional minefield of a ten-year old who thought to stave off death with tears and tiny fists.

Yondu sank to his knees and gathered his charge close enough to suffocate. Within the sturdy cage of his arms, Peter struggled and let out a litany of heart-wrenchingly impotent roars until he finally exhausted himself.

“Ro,” Peter called out brokenly. His frantic voice cracked and devolved into a series of gasping cries. Yondu held him through the worst of it and tried his best to contain the great wracking sobs within the safety of his embrace. His fingers carded through Peter’s hair restlessly whilst the boy clung to his leathers and poured out a bounty of expletives and mucus.

“You stop that sentimental nonsense right now,” Yondu ordered gently. Though, if anyone were to point out the tenderness in his voice and the softening of his expression in that moment, he would staunchly deny it.

Peter squirmed and half-heartedly tried to punch him yet again.  “You were supposed to protect him!”

“Kid, for one, you better watch your goddamn mouth and respect your daddy. For two, there ain’t nobody livin’ able to go up against that blue jackhole toe-to-toe. He sure as hell don’t need _my_ protectin’.”

“If he’s so great, then why’s he gone? Why didn’t he come back like he said?” Peter asked with yet another strangled scream, punctuating each word with a vicious head butt to Yondu’s chest. The strikes sounded like jogging footfalls in the echo of the narrow corridor. Yondu ground his teeth and weathered the assault with aplomb, if not dignity.

“Son, he ain’t dead.”

The writhing force of nature stilled almost immediately in his arms, silent but for a hitched series of congested sniffles.

“What do ya mean?” Peter asked.

The guarded hope in his voice made Yondu wince. It harkened back to a time in his own youth that he couldn’t afford to remember. Instead, the Captain stroked his hair and looked away from the ruddy face suddenly turned up towards him. It would have taken more strength than he possessed to meet those eyes.

“Exactly what I damn well said. Now if yer done with all of this boo-hooin’, I can get on with makin’ sure yer big, blue nanny gets back to work before you drive me to drinkin’.” Yondu stood up stiffly and took a moment to shake the protest out of his abused joints.

Peter scrambled up soon after and viscously scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his already half-sodden sleeves. “Like you don’t already,” he shot back with the quavering beginnings of a smile. The expression emphasized the mottled red skin of his swollen face in a decidedly unattractive way, but it brought an answering grin to Yondu’s lips nonetheless.

Despite his affected bravado, Peter took a moment to collect himself and attempt to balance the heavy mantle of near-loss on his child-sized shoulders.

“Whatever. Come on, ya little shit.”

Yondu strode into the medbay with such quick, loping strides that Peter had to jog to keep up. Once the hatch swished shut behind them, Yondu came to a halt and jerked his head towards a solitary chair in the corner of the foyer. Peter immediately took the hint and scrabbled into the seat. Being more rust than metal, it wobbled precariously.

“Now, you wait here until I come an’ get you. You hear me, boy?”

Peter nodded his head rapidly in answer, staring up at Yondu with a bald, expectant gaze, and watched as the red of his jacket retreated down the corridor that led towards the surgical bay.

He fidgeted with a loose thread on the seam of his own jacket and tried not to think about the last time he’d been relegated to the waiting area as a loved one clung to life in the next room. Images of his mother arose nonetheless. “It’s not the same. It’s not the same,” he chanted, clenching his fists until they ached.

Tense hours passed, the quiet interspersed by a symphony of beeps, whistles, and Yondu’s angry roars.

“It’s not the same,” Peter repeated as he pulled his jacket tight in the imitation of a hug.

The beeps and frantic voices continued.

It was too familiar. _Too much._

Jumping out of his chair with a strangled cry, Peter did what he knew best.

He ran.

 

***

 

Sometime later, Yondu wiped a hand down his haggard face and shuffled into the waiting room. “Now where in the hell?” he began, scratching absently at the dried blood in his stubble. 

The spindly-limbed doctor followed close behind, claws clicking rhythmically along the grate. “Looks like the kid couldn’t stomach a little dose of mortality, eh?” she hissed. A toothy grin split her face, blindingly white against the pitch hue of her skin.

Yondu eyed her side-long and grunted. “I don’t pay you for your goddamn opinion. If I gotta find a new first mate, you bet your ass I’m gonna have to be findin’ a new medical officer too.” Without waiting for a response, he waved her off and ducked out into the ship’s main thoroughfare.

Jakar flared her neck ridges in irritation and promptly made her way back to Ronan’s bedside to resume her duties. Despite what miracles the Captain expected of her, it was now up to the comatose Kree to finish the healing she had started. Until then, the artificial respirator and various sundry of life-support apparatuses would sustain him.

She removed her blood-soaked lab apron and violently threw it into in a wet pile next to the waste-removal chute. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, you know that?” she muttered to Ronan’s still form. She ambled over and took a moment to rearrange all of her angles and appendages into the single dilapidated chair at his bedside. The task was managed with determination, if not grace.

“I thought Kree were smarter than this. Taken down by a Xandarian pulse cannon? You would have been Captain now if you hadn’t pulled such a stupid, self-sacrificing stunt.”

She stretched hugely, threaded her claws together in her lap, and then settled in for the night. “Idiot,” she pronounced to the room at large.

With nothing pressing left to attend to, the steady hum of the life support equipment lulled Jakar into a deep, but uneasy, sleep.

 

***

 

Hours later, as the reptilian doctor snored in a series of halting hisses and snorts, Peter dared to abandon his watchpost in the ventilation shaft above. It had taken him a significant stretch of time and several tear-stained maintenance cloths to come to terms with the afternoon’s events. Ultimately, he resolved to keep his newfound family alive through sheer force of will.

He eased the vent cover off with practiced ease and dropped to the floor. The impact of his boots on the grate had him eyeing the monstrous doctor nervously, but she didn’t so much as flinch at the sound.

Luck was seemingly on his side. _If only it had been on Ronan’s as well_ , he thought morosely.

Peter stared, uncomprehending, at the muscular, blue body laid out on the life-support platform. This was Ronan, the larger-than-life Kree warrior and occasional subjugator of recalcitrant Terran pre-teens. The cognitive dissonance between that vivacious archetype of a man and the sallow specter before him made bile rise in the back of Peter’s throat.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened.

He half expected the man to leap up at any moment with a wicked laugh and his trademark smirk, teasing Peter mercilessly for his gullibility. But, instead, he lay placid in the brightly lit room, silent but for the rhythmic hum of the ventilator. The gauze-packed craters in his chest and abdomen told a tale that Peter wished he could immediately forget.

He carefully slid one of his hands into Ronan’s, mindful of the IV lines, and twined their fingers together. The Kree never would have allowed such a brazen show of sentiment, but he wasn’t in any shape to tell Peter ‘no’ at the moment. Tears that had been so recently tamped down, returned in full force.

“If you get those Terran waterworks into the wounds that I just finished patching up, I’ll have your hide,” Jakar hissed from her chair, a sliver of one reflective black eye peeking out. Despite her words, her tone rang out light and teasing.

Peter sucked in a breath and pulled away from Ronan as if his hand had been branded.

“Oh, crap!” he exclaimed, backpedaling around the table quickly and eyeing the exit with trepidation.

The chair scraped and squealed along the floor as Jakar awkwardly disentangled herself from the armrests.

“Easy there, Bite-Size, I’ve already eaten this week,” she hissed with a shark-like grin. However, she held up her palms, immediately contrite when Peter began to quake and edge himself closer to his erstwhile protector.

“Try it, ugly. I dare you!” he railed with a quaver in his high-pitched voice. “If you do, Ro is _so_ gonna kick your ass.”

Together they instinctively glanced at the unresponsive Kree.

The threat of Ronan’s wrath was Peter’s go-to defense against the less-than-noble vices of particular Ravagers. Now, that protective buffer was gone. Eyes wide like saucers, Peter’s gaze slowly panned back to Jakar, where she unintentionally towered above him. He gathered his dirty coat tightly around him and began to hyperventilate.

“Whoa, whoa. I said ‘easy,’ Quill. Just take a deep breath, yeah?” Jakar lowered her serpentine neck in an attempt to seem smaller while she backed away towards the door. “You can visit as long as you like; I’m pretty sure I have reports to write. How coincidental. Just don’t touch the machines or I’ll have your hands off. Good?”

Peter breathed rapidly into his cupped palms, but managed to raise one middle finger in answer.

Jakar tossed her head. Satisfied that her patient was stable and his snot-nosed, Terran charge was no longer going to threaten her good works, she left the room.

Peter eyed the doorway with trepidation and strained to listen to the receding click of talons until they too disappeared. An ominous silence descended on the dim medbay, broken only by his own hitching breath. He shuffled to the opposite side of the bed so that he had a view of all angles of approach. Thus cloistered by the bulkhead, he finally allowed himself to twine his fingers with Ronan’s once more. The juxtaposition of their skin held his gaze until the image wavered.

It seemed that the tears came so easily now that he had already allowed them to fall the first time, as if the sluice gates could never be reclosed. His head pounded from the pressure of his swollen sinuses, beating in time with the staccato pump of a heart half-torn.

With a broken moan, Peter crawled up onto the plinth and wedged himself up against Ronan’s muscular arm, uncharacteristically careful. Their fingers stayed firmly laced as he maneuvered around the nest of surgical tubing and pressed his forehead against the Kree’s slack deltoid.

“You’ll be okay, right?” he whispered into the skin before him.

No answer was forthcoming.

 

***

 

The next morning, Yondu leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and an unreadable expression twisting his lips into a grimace. He watched Peter snore softly, every other breath hitching on a sniffle. His boy was never the most emotionally stable of beings, to say the least. But laying as he was, curled around Ronan’s arm like a limpet, there was something about his sweat-stained clothes and matted hair that seemed to draw the light from the room.

“You have to admit, the kid’s loyalty is commendable,” Jakar observed from over his shoulder.

Yondu flinched imperceptibly at the interruption of his thoughts, eyes narrowing.

“Ain’t nothin’ commendable about sentiment,” he snapped. “Makes ya soft. Weak. Like that blue bastard.” He jerked his thumb towards Ronan’s prone body.   

Taking the hint, Doctor Jakar dipped her head in silent apology. “Of course.” She allowed the tense moment to pass before speaking once more. “Would you like for me to give your boy more time to sleep? The dressings won’t need changing for a little while yet, and the life support systems are keeping the Accuser’s vitals stable for the time being.”

“Stable? If he’s so damn stable then what do I need a fuckin’ doctor for? I should have thrown you both out the damn airlock and been done with it.” Yondu snarled.

The typically dormant spines along Jakar’s ribs flared, lifting her lab coat and giving the impression of an inflating balloon. However, she managed to quickly reign in her annoyance at the misdirected vitriol. “We both know that you don’t really mean that, Captain.”

Yondu scoffed and ground his teeth.

They stood side-by-side for an indeterminate time, watching Ronan’s chest rise and fall beneath Peter’s arm. Jakar loomed like an Eldritch nightmare whilst Yondu ignored her in favor of critically eyeing Ronan’s passive face.

“You’d better snap out of it already, ya ugly, blue jackass. ’Cause if you die and hurt my boy, I’ll be comin’ for you. Whatever afterlife you Kree believe in, I’ma hunt you down and drag you back myself, ya hear?”

Jakar tactfully held her tongue in regards to the futility of the threat.

“And for every day that you lay down on the job, you’re gonna spend _double_ on cleaning duty,” he continued, eyes flashing angrily between Ronan and Peter’s drawn, tear-stained face.

Finally, Jakar rested a palm against his shoulder. “Captain Udonta, why don’t you take a page out of the kid’s book and go get some rest? I’ll gladly write a physician's order if a well-meaning suggestion doesn’t suit,” she admonished gently, but with underlying steel in her tone.

Yondu tensed beneath her claws and smacked her arm away. He abruptly turned and stormed toward the exit, railing loudly. “‘Physician’s orders,’ my shiny, blue ass. You’d have to scrape together some ga’damn credentials first.”

Jakar brushed a hand over her hairless carapace.

There was a time when she had served as a vaunted member of the Delegation of Physicians under the far-reaching hand of the Kree empire. She eyed the disgraced Accuser laid out on her work-space. It was a marvel how quickly everything could change.

On the plinth, Peter stirred and sent her thoughts scattering. However, he resettled almost immediately.

Jakar took a moment to gather her supplies and decided to go about her work in the quiet morning hours after all, carefully working around Ronan’s Terran-shaped growth. Tacky clumps of blood clung to the gauze packing as Jakar painstakingly removed it from his abdomen and chest. In enviable Kree fashion, the massive wounds appeared to have filled with a substantial layer of renewed flesh overnight. They would likely be healed over completely in a matter of days.

Over the course of the next two days, the ventilator whirred ceaselessly as a sundry of fluids pumped into and out of his body in a near endless cycle of reclamation. Peter spent every waking moment firmly planted by Ronan’s side, wide-eyed and fierce, until Doctor Jakar threatened to drag in the decontamination unit and hose him down. She had no patience for his adamant attestations that the smell would wake Ronan up sooner.

They ultimately managed to reach a delicate truce regarding visiting hours. Meals and showers were made mandatory with only moderate success.

On the sixth night of his quiet vigil, Peter ambled in and eased himself up onto the plinth. His stomach rumbled and his clothing needed laundering, but he paid them no mind. Instead, he filled the child-sized space that he’d carved out on Ronan’s bed over the course of the week and pressed his forehead into the comfortable divot just beneath Ronan’s deltoid. The Kree’s shoulders didn’t seem to boast quite the same breadth as they had a week prior, but Peter forcibly turned his thoughts elsewhere.

Rooting through his jacket pockets, he struggled with the bulk of his walkman, and finally freed it from his leathers. On impulse, he eased the headphones over Ronan’s head and settled them crookedly onto his ears. He flinched at the loud click as he pressed the play button, then eased back down to the bed.

He fell asleep with a silent prayer on his lips and the muffled beat of “Hooked on a Feeling” in his soul.

 

***

 

The first thing that hit Ronan was the acrid scent of antiseptic and unwashed bodies. His nostrils flared in distaste.

He struggled to keep his breathing even in an attempt to familiarize his senses with the environment and take account of his situation. But he found that his lungs no longer operated under his own command. His diaphragm spasmed painfully and his abdominals clenched as his body instinctively fought the alien intrusion of the ventilator.

Artificial light near blinded him when he cracked his eyes open. With a pained groan, he aborted the attempt and reached up blindly to feel for the shape and source of the endotracheal tube.

He slowly backed it out of his throat, coughing on viscous strings of saliva once the job was done, and let it drop to the metal grate.  He collapsed bonelessly to the bed and focused on drawing breath in through his raw airway. The process was entirely unpleasant, made more so by the inordinately heavy burden weighing down his left side. Everything tasted like copper and saline, the afterimage of the overhead lights burned behind his eyelids, and fatigue sapped every ounce of motivation from him.

He had never before considered just how inconvenient consciousness could be.

Licking the medical-grade lubricant from his lips, Ronan managed to rally himself and fight the burn of muscles long-since unused. He forced himself onto one elbow with a grunt. The light was still blinding, but he managed to crack his eyes just enough to make out the shock of unruly red hair resting on his stomach.

Peter’s ridiculous headphones clattered to the floor as he shifted. Only the _Eclector_ could house the natural disaster that was his ten-year-old charge. He was home.

“Peter,” he rasped, surprised by the deplorable state of his voice. Grinning fondly, he redoubled his efforts to detach himself from the life support systems.

Needles tinkled like fairy bells as they struck the edge of the biobed after having been unceremoniously torn from his arms and neck. The removal of the catheter was handled with a bit more finesse.  

Following a brief moment of rest, he made quick work of the nasogastric tube, heedless of the discomfort and the acrid taste that accompanied its removal. Finally, he eased himself back to the bed and swallowed air in great heaving gasps. Even so small an exertion proved to be too great.

Peter shifted and clutched at his rising chest, eyelids twitching at the disturbance.

Ronan’s laugh lines crinkled from the sudden breadth of his smile. And, if his eyes momentarily grew glassy, no one was around to see. With a Herculean effort, he shifted onto his side and pulled his charge up tightly against his chest.

The movement startled Peter, who awoke in a fit of swinging limbs and expletives.   

“Stop kicking me at once,” Ronan ordered with a chuckle that set him to coughing weakly. Peter stilled in his arms and gaped up. In a matter of milliseconds, his arms were wrapped as far around Ronan’s barrel chest as possible and his face was staunchly buried in the Kree’s chest.

“No! You deserve it!” Peter’s angry muttering trailed off into an unintelligible litany of curses. However, his slight frame shuddered against Ronan as his anger quickly devolved into a series of quiet sobs. Ronan held him close and ran his palm soothingly down the back of Peter’s coat. He crooned reassurances until his charge lay boneless against him, sniffling as he continued to claw half moons into Ronan’s bare skin.

“I suppose it’s nice to know that I would be mourned despite your continued insistence to the contrary,” Ronan observed. He closed his eyes against the pain of speaking and attempted to ignore the sudden insight he had into the sensation of swallowing broken glass.

Peter scoffed. “Who else would stop people from eating me?”

“A salient point. Perhaps we should look into obtaining a Targathian guard hound for you to serve as a suitable replacement? Hmm?” Ronan rumbled, not bothering to fight a grin.

Sheets hissed softly as Peter shifted up the bed and settled once more with his head tucked beneath Ronan’s chin. Though the Kree was loath to admit it, the blatant display of affection was both warm and fortifying.

“Stop using your big, fancy words and talk like a normal person, would ya?” Peter replied petulantly, once he had settled. “And stop tryin’ to get out of takin’ care of me. You sleep on the job too much already.”

“You reek, my little Filth-Lord,” Ronan murmured into Peter’s unruly mop of hair. “How could I possibly sleep with your unholy stench assaulting my delicate sensibilities?”

“I knew it!” Peter pronounced smugly. “I told that stupid doctor that you would wake up quicker if I didn’t take a bath.”

Incredulous, Ronan could only gasp as he laughed himself hoarse.


	4. Childhood Part 1 (Age 15)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fed up with Peter's incessant teenage hormones, Yondu sends him to the pleasure district on Contraxia. Instead of partaking, Peter gets some advice. (Rated M)

Childhood Part 1 (Age 15)

 

 

 

Peter picked up the floppy fist replica and shook it about, watching as it bowed and wobbled. Why anyone would want a statue that kept falling over was beyond him. After first casting a glance at Yondu to make certain he was occupied, Peter held the thing by its arm-end and spun the fist about like a helicopter.

“Boy, put that down!” Yondu hollered over his shoulder from across the lavishly decorated foyer.

Peter quickly shoved the thing back onto the mantle and leaned against the roaring fireplace, the very picture of innocence. “Put what down?” he yelled back, pitching his tone to carry.

He couldn’t fight his burgeoning grin at how deep his voice had become. It would never be like Ronan’s—reminiscent of grinding stone—but the room’s acoustics were flattering enough that he could imagine.  

Grunting, Yondu rolled his eyes and turned back to his conversation with the Contraxian proprietor.

Peter cracked his neck and began to peruse the other odds and ends displayed across the mantle. His fingers ghosted across a sundry of metal contraptions of indeterminable function. Some were elaborate puzzle boxes that whirred at his touch, others, quite frankly, just looked like disembodied dicks.

The crackling flames cast a blue light on his mischievous, pimple-pocked grin as he positioned a couple of the more suggestive items in lewd orientations.

If Yondu hadn’t expressly told him that they were going to a time-honored Ravager sporting-house on Contraxia, he’d have thought the place was a brothel, like he had seen in movies. Everything about the large space screamed extravagant excess, from the filmy waves of purple fabric ghosting among the eaves at the entrance to the rich Kad’rav snow-cat rugs laid out in the foyer to absorb the warmth of the fire. There wasn’t a single net, racquet, or ball to play sports with.

Excepting, maybe the fist statue.

Raised voices from across the way made Peter abandon his inspection in favor of edging close enough to eavesdrop. To be fair, he didn’t have to attempt any sort of subterfuge considering the volume of Yondu’s offended roar, but the sneaking was the fun part.

“Fifty units? Now you listen ‘ere! It ain’t like it’s gonna take more than two solar minutes anyways!”

The delicate alien behind the counter fluttered its gills and leaned across. Peter watched as it flicked Yondu’s chin with a needle-like claw and shot the Captain a toothy smile.

“Would you like to make it sixty?” it asked slowly, extending the vowels. Bioluminescent spots flared along its chest and raced down its arm to coalesce into the glowing claw it raked along Yondu’s jawline.

Yondu swallowed heavily. “Fifty it is. And how ’bout another five for yer trouble,” he answered with a poorly affected smile.

The creature laughed and abandoned its threat in favor of reaching over and scanning Yondu’s proffered identity chip. “Such a generous man, Udonta. Don’t let the other Ravagers catch you being so charitable.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keepin’ my balls intact ain’t charity,” Yondu drawled as he returned the chip in the inner lining of his coat.

“True enough.” The alien shrugged and wiggled its translucent pectoral fins. Transaction complete, it shifted its attention to where Peter had attempted to stuff his gangly limbs behind an ornate flower pot. The creature tossed its head and beckoned him over.

“Come, Mr. Quill. It would appear that a room has just been made available for you.”

Peter awkwardly stood from his hiding place and smoothed down the front of his once-white shirt before trotting over. His steps were light and springy with the thought of the courts and sporting equipment that must be in the back of the facility. This _was_ a pretty classy place. It made sense that they would have needed a reservation.

“You behave yerself, now, ya hear?” Yondu waved in parting and made his way toward the massive, glass entryway.

Peter stopped in his tracks and stared after him. “Huh? Aren’t you comin’?” he asked, confused. His question garnered a moment of silence, then both Yondu and the alien proprietor burst out laughing.

Wheezing through its gills, the fish-like alien wiped its streaming eyes. “Oh, I should have charged you double for this one, Udonta,” it choked out. Trails of bioluminescence swept over its flared dorsal fin in an energetic wave that thrummed in time with each bubbling chuckle.    

Peter crossed his arms across his chest and glared at his boots. “It was a legitimate question,” he muttered beneath his breath.

When the creature had sobered, it patted his shoulder companionably. “So it was,” it crooned at Peter in a poor attempt at placation, then motioned for him to follow. With one last glance at Yondu’s retreating back, he did so.

Out of spite, Peter dragged his feet along the hardwood flooring, forcing his host to slow its pace. “You, uh, don’t play sports here, do you?” he asked with a note of petulance.

The alien looked back at him as it pressed open a massive set of black doors. The smile it gave him in answer was soft despite the needle teeth. “No, child, not the kind of sports you’re thinking of.”

The black entryway led into a long hall whose walls boasted doors of every different hue. Some, Peter could see, still others were of a spectrum that stabbed between his eyes and threatened to unmake him if he stared too long. His host stopped before a door as crisply blue as Ronan’s skin, bowing its head and ushering him in with an outspread arm.

“Enjoy yourself, Mr. Quill,” it said, then wheeled around and took its leave.

Heart pounding, Peter uncrossed his arms and eased them down to his sides. He made quick work of canvassing the room. It was a spartan affair that boasted none of the fancy trappings he’d seen in other parts of the building. There was an excessively large bed in the center of the room and several storage bins dolefully glowing from the wall. Other than that, it was rather barren. The only point of interest in the small space was a single window peeking out over the sprawling, snow-swept Ravager base.

Turning away from the view of the skyline, Peter approached the bed and ran his fingers over the downy linens. They were softer than anything he had ever felt. Glancing around the room once more, he toed off his boots and dropped his coat in a heap on top of them. Task complete, he sat down on the bed and rolled onto his stomach. If something was about to go down, Peter was damn sure going to enjoy the feel of a real bed before he had to face the music of whatever Yondu had gotten him into this time.

Adrenaline at the mystery of the unknown pumped through him, pushing his heart into his throat and making his limbs feel unresponsive. He clutched the bedspread and burrowed his face into it.

Several long, slow breaths later, he managed to calm the roar of blood in his ears. It was then that he heard the click of the door.

Peter jerked up onto his knees with reflexes honed by experience, hand on his knife belt and wide-eyed in startlement. “Holy crap, lady. You about gave me a heart attack!”

An unconventionally beautiful woman slipped around the door and gifted him with a demure smile as she closed it behind her. “I sincerely apologize for frightening you, Mr. Quill,” she said in a voice that flowed like silk. Something in her words seemed to wrap around Peter’s brain like a caress, immediately soothing his panic. He removed his hand from his belt and gave her a lopsided grin. “Hey, no problem,” he chirped.

Peter sat back down and scooted to the edge of the bed, letting his legs dangle over the side. The woman was enchanting. She was fairly humanoid, with long, tapered limbs and a generous curve to her hips that immediately triggered something in his hindbrain.

She batted her dual sets of eyes at him once his roving gaze had completed its circuit of her body. “Do you like what you see?” she asked, running a finger teasingly across the modest swell of her bosom.

Peter’s eyes immediately shot down to his lap. He began to wring the tail of his untucked shirt between his fists. “I’m sorry, er, Ma’am,” he apologized quickly. Her tittering laughter drew his gaze once more.

“Oh my, this truly is new to you! Kotrr mentioned that you were a first time customer, but—oh I did not mean to offend,” she rushed to finish, holding up her hands when Peter curled his shoulders in and wrung his shirt with a vengeance. “It’s just that you’re a Ravager. It’s surprising that you’ve waited this long. That’s all.”

She approached the bed with quite a bit less sway to her hips than when she had first entered and eased herself down to sit next to him. The multitudinous layers of her chiffon skirt parted to reveal a long line of pink skin.

“I’m sorry; I’ve been terribly unprofessional. Maybe we can start over. Hello, Mr. Quill, my name is Sephro and I will be your pleasure consultant for the evening.” She held out her hand as if she expected an introductory handshake. Peter eyed her suspiciously, then wiped his sweaty palm on his shirt and gave her hand a tentative shake. He snatched his hand back as quickly as he could without being impolite.

“How do you know human— _Terran_ stuff?” he asked meekly.   

Sephro crossed her legs demurely and flicked an errant strand of red hair back behind her shoulder. “I know many species’ customs. You have to in my line of work.”

“So you _are_ a whore,” Peter concluded, nodding his head sagely. His words were met with a derisive snort.

“No, love, I’m a _pleasure consultant_. I independently contract with prospective buyers to exchange services for money. Much like yourself, Mr. Quill.”

Peter flushed bright red as her chiding rebuke hit home. “I didn’t mean any offense, ma’am. I ain’t ever been in a place like this,” he muttered.

“Well, now that we’ve both unintentionally offended each other, how about we discuss what you would like to gain out of your time here, hm?” Sephro patted his knee and skated her palm up his inner thigh, humming at the surprising definition she felt beneath his leathers. Peter was tall and slender, but the suggestion of bulk to come was already blossoming on his frame.  

When Peter did nothing but stutter and snap his mouth shut, she continued sliding her hand further up his trembling leg. She traced the last couple inches of inseam with one finger, then gently ground the heel of her hand into his obvious erection.

Peter leapt from the bed and skittered across the room, hands firmly covering his crotch. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry! It just kinda does that. I mean, seriously, even a good bit of turbulence can make it, uh, do _that_ ,” he stammered as he eyed the door and wondered if he could make a break for it.

“ _That_ is the reason you’re here, isn’t it?” Sephro drawled, pointing to his hidden arousal with a delicately manicured finger.

“What? No!” Peter shook his head so violently that his auburn curls became even more unruly than usual.

“I’m confused. If you don’t want sex, why are you here?” Sephro asked, purposefully keeping her intonation free of anything that could be misconstrued as judgement. She uncrossed her legs, instead sitting with her thighs together, and covered herself with the numerous layers of chiffon as she stared at Peter curiously.

“I didn’t know we were coming to a whor—pleasure whatever house! Yondu just shoved me on a ship and said we were going out. Said he was sick of me moping around and keepin’ Krags up and stuff,” Peter exclaimed, gesticulating violently with one hand while preserving his tattered dignity with the other. “I mean, I guess now I can see why he would, what with that thing with sneakin’ around and peekin’ at Ro in the shower, but that was only once!” He held up a single quavering finger, then thought better of it. “Well, maybe more than once, but lookin’ never hurt anyone.”

Canting her head to the side, Sephro weathered the storm of his ramblings with grace and patted the bed next to her with a soft sigh. “Come have a seat, Mr. Quill. If I’m not going to be plying my trade tonight, why don’t you at least come tell me about this shower companion of yours? Ro, was it?” She blinked all four eyes and smiled knowingly.

Her change in demeanor confused Peter into an uncommon silence. He shifted in place and tried to ignore the most obvious tell of his raging hormones as it persistently strained at his leathers. His arousal thrummed—trapped beneath his waistband—despite the stress of the situation and the chill of the raging blizzard just outside. Thoughts of bare blue skin certainly weren’t helping matters.

Peter licked his lips nervously. “Huh? Why do you wanna talk about Ronan?”

Sephro rocked back on the bed and slapped a hand to her chest. “Ronan? _Supreme Accuser_ Ronan?! That’s who has you all hot and bothered? Oh, child. Oh you poor, sweet, stupid child.” A myriad of emotions flitted across her face until she finally settled for pinching her brows together in bemusement.

“Hey, it ain’t like what yer thinkin’. He’s no flarkin’ Accuser, even though he’s a galaxy-class di—” Peter began, only to be abruptly cut off when Sephro raised a hand between them.

Making a show of smoothing out the wrinkles in her skirts, she straightened her spine and shifted her long hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter. The less I know about that man, the better. But, you’ve given me an idea,” she said, waggling her index finger in the air. “Do you remember that handshake, Mr. Quill? How I explained that a member of my profession needs to know a broad range of species’ customs?”

“Yeah, so?” Peter responded, still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. He eyed the way her hair fell like a fiery waterfall behind her.

“How would you like to learn some of those customs, hm? Royal Kree are a finicky sort; they take a firm hand and a very different approach than, say, a Terran. You obviously aren’t interested in what _I_ have to offer, so how about I give you a few pointers instead?”

Time seemed to come to a standstill. Peter raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline and parted his lips as the realization of his good fortune hit home. He rushed over to the bed and bounded onto it, exuberantly hopping up and down on his folded knees and rocking his hostess about in the process.

“Dude! How much longer do we have? Is there a lot of stuff to learn? This is so weird. But, you know what, doesn’t matter. Tell me everything!” he crowed, slapping his knees.

Steadying herself, Sephro laughed and leaned in conspiratorially. “First, I think we’ll need some props.”

 

***

 

When Yondu finally returned—over a solar hour late—to collect Peter from the waiting area, he was met with a different child.

Yondu took one look at Peter’s ruddy cheeks and beaming smile, then threw an arm over his shoulders to pull him down and ruffle his hair. “See, boy, a trip to the ol’ sportin’ house was just what you needed!” he crowed as Peter struggled to break his hold.

“Get offa me, old man. You smell like booze,” Peter complained, though even Yondu’s particular brand of obnoxiousness couldn’t drag his spirits down. They pushed out into Contraxia’s icy climes and simultaneously lifted their lapels against the biting wind. Hissing at the cold, Peter tucked his hands up under his armpits and began trudging back towards the M-ship, Yondu in tow.

“Hey, wha’s that you got there?” Yondu asked as he closed the gap between them and made a grab for the lumpy satchel swaying at Peter’s hip.

Peter dodged his hands and lifted a boot in warning, teetering slightly in the snow. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to risk frostbite to his hands when a foot would do. “Ain’t none of your business, Yondu. Just grabbed a bit o’ supplies while I was waitin’ on your slow ass,” he snapped.

Yondu simply chuckled and appraised him sidelong as they continued towards the flashing red lights of the landing pads.

“Yeah? Well, you best make sure none of them _supplies_ leave your cabin, son. Poor Kraglin ain’t slept in a week since you—”

Peter sacrificed one hand in order to swat ineffectually at Yondu’s shoulder. “I get it, jeeze,” he whined.

He jogged a couple of paces through the snow to escape Yondu’s gentle ribbing, taking comfort in the heavy weight of Sephro’s gift as it bounced merrily off of his hip with each stride.  

 

***

 

Following their post-flight systems check, Yondu disembarked from his garish M-ship and all but skipped down the gangplank.

In the docking area immediately adjacent, Ronan glanced up from where he was crouched, elbow-deep in a phase shift engine bay. He wiped his sweaty brow on the back of his forearm—smearing his ceremonial paint in the process—and rose to greet him.

“Udonta,” he rumbled with a small nod of respect.

“Don’t you ever wear clothes, son?” Yondu drawled in lieu of a greeting, chuckling as he strode up to Ronan and gave his bare shoulder a hearty slap. He immediately regretted the decision and wiped his wet palm on his shirt.

“I am more accustomed to colder climes. You are well aware of this fact,” Ronan stated. He glared down at the place Yondu had touched, curling his lip in distaste. The pervasive scent of alcohol clung to his skin. “I trust you enjoyed yourself on Contraxia.”

“Eh, don’t remember much of it t’be honest.” Yondu shrugged noncommittally and trod the few paces back to his ship to engage the manual docking clamps. He bent over at the waist to grab hold of a rusty lever near the landing gear, then gave it a tug. When the lever resisted with a fierce squeal, he dropped to the ground and braced his feet on the M-ship’s shock strut with the lever jutting up between his knees.

“Someone should really fix this flarkin’ thing,” Yondu ground out as he struggled to pull the lever, quads burning with the effort. Deafened by the sound of his own grunts and curses, he yelped in surprise when Ronan’s hand covered his own and effortlessly released the lever. Yondu fell back to the ground with a sheepish grin.

He immediately staggered to his feet and dusted himself off. “See there? I loosened it for ya.”

“Undoubtedly.” Ronan shook his head and returned to his prior work in the engine bay. The melted seals on the manifold popped apart with a sharp tug. As they did so, a viscous dollop of grease from above broke loose and spattered along his arm. He stared at the resulting pattern as if it could offer insight into his continued stay aboard the _Eclector._

Head deep in engine parts and moroseness, he heard Peter’s enthusiastic approach only as a series of concussions through the metal hull.

“Hey, Ro!” Peter chirped happily as he slid to a stop and bounced on his toes, hands clasped behind his back. Beneath the harsh bay lights, the patina of sweat cresting Ronan’s back and shoulders made his flesh appear to ripple with each flex of muscle. Peter couldn’t help but appreciate the view.  

“Hello, Peter,” Ronan answered smoothly, voice resonating within the engine cavity.

“Guess where we went.” Though he tried to appear cool and collected, excitement thrummed through him and gave his voice a distinctly high-pitched lilt.  

Sighing, Ronan backed his head and shoulders out of the engine bay and gently eased the disconnected manifold to the ground. He eyed Peter critically, from his flushed, wind-bitten cheeks down to the suspicious satchel at his side.

“Contraxia.”

Peter toed the massive metal tubing, as long as he was tall, then grinned up at Ronan. “That’s right! And guess what I did.”

“Child, I am quite occupied at the moment,” he growled, gesturing broadly at the metal parts strewn about the landing pad and the various engine fluids smeared across his skin. “Either speak your piece or leave.”

“Fine. There’s no need to be an ass about it,” Peter huffed. However, his fit of pique quickly passed. “So, anyways—Yondu took me to a Sporting House, but there weren’t no sports goin’ on, if you get my drift.”

Ronan froze as he knelt down to retrieve several O-rings the size of dinner plates. He hovered his hand over the gaskets for a brief second, then continued to gather them. When he rose once more, he couldn’t help but notice the way Peter chewed on his bottom lip and continued to wring his hands behind his back.

“Indeed?”

His lackluster response only egged Peter on.

“Yeah. Oh my God, dude, this alien chick I hooked up with was so hot. Like, smokin’ hot. She had these giant—” He cupped his hands in front of his chest.

Ronan pointedly channeled his attention into prepping and slotting the gaskets into their respective grooves.

“You shoulda seen the things she did with her—”

As Ronan heaved the massive manifold back into place, the groaning of metal thankfully deafened him to the details of what had been done with the woman’s unspecified body parts. He grunted with the effort of positioning the heavy piece. Once it was in place, he blindly felt around his belt for the torque spanner.

His thoughts were interrupted by the impact of the missing spanner as it glanced off of his boot.

“There’s your stupid tool. Are you even listening to me?” Peter asked petulantly.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Ronan ground out. It wouldn’t be possible to retrieve the spanner and maintain his hold on the manifold at the same time.  

“So, that’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“Congratulations on the intercourse,” Ronan retorted dryly. “I suggest you cease regaling me with overly embellished tales of your sexual prowess and retrieve the manifold spanner.”

“You—you, argh!” Peter threw his hands up and yelled unintelligibly as he stormed off. Each vicious stomp made his bag sway wildly, occasionally revealing a peek of its blue contents.

Ronan raised a brow and watched him storm off.

“The hell was all that about?” Yondu asked as he casually strolled over a moment later. The towel in his hands was stained red with rust and a line of perspiration glued his shirt to his chest.

“I cannot possibly begin to fathom that child’s thoughts or motivations,” Ronan responded, shrugging as much as he could while stabilizing the manifold. “Now, if you would prefer to have a fully functional M-ship for the boy’s gift tomorrow, I will require a torque spanner.”


	5. Childhood Part 2 (Age 16)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter broaches the topic of feelings. Rated T

Childhood Part 2 (Age 16)

 

 

 

Feet planted and crossed-arms bulging, Peter’s body language promised a rather impressive spectacle to come. Even at sixteen, his shoulders had already begun to suggest the breadth and musculature of a man in his prime. They served to block the hatchway to Ronan’s quarters rather efficiently.

“Is there a purpose in having my quarters graced by such vaunted a presence as your own, _Star-Lord_? The bar is surely missing you,” Ronan drawled as he methodically drew closer. Several raucous groups of Ravagers swept around him on their way elsewhere, smartly giving him plenty of berth in the narrow corridor.

“Rude much?” Peter huffed in irritation and let his hands fall to rest on his hips instead. The cant of his pelvis and the curved line of his body radiated such youthful insolence that it made Ronan’s lip curl in the beginnings of a snarl. The banked animosity that had grown between them over the past few weeks, flared anew.

“Peter…” he growled in warning.

“What? You said you wanted to talk. I’m here. So talk,” he pronounced as the Kree’s backlit bulk loomed over him. The sternness that was his initial intent quickly gave way to a rising note of petulance.

Without responding, Ronan reached over his shoulder and swiftly keyed in the entry sequence to his quarters. As soon as the hatch swished open, he slammed a palm into Peter’s chest and abruptly shoved him into the room. The door closed behind them with a sense of finality.

“Hey, man!” Peter protested loudly as he stumbled and caught himself on a nearby table. Star charts fluttered to the floor around him like fallen leaves. “The hell is your problem?”

Ronan ignored Peter’s indignance in favor of pacing a well-worn path along the area rug of the central room. Starlight from the adjacent viewport glinted off his bared teeth with each pass.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” He ran a palm over his smooth scalp, turning sharply on his heel to face Peter. Tension thrummed between them, thick and kinetic.

“Avoiding you? I haven’t been avoiding you,” Peter promptly retorted. The fierce glare that he received in turn made the denial curdle in his mouth. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms defensively once more. “What? I wasn’t.”

“For eight Terran years I have been prying your filthy fists from my coattails, only to turn and find that those efforts were consistently in vain. Eight years, wherein I have weathered the storm of your staunch insolence and churlish tongue. It has only been within the last thirty-five solar days that I have finally been gifted the peace that I so desperately sought since being chosen to bear the burden of Yondu’s poor decision making,” Ronan expounded. Each vehement attestation brought him another step closer to where Peter continued to lean against the work desk, quivering in rage.

A mottled flush of anger framed Peter’s deep frown and furrowed brow. “You’re such an ass,” he hissed before pushing off of the desk and swiftly making his way towards the exit.

Ronan snatched the back of his coat collar and brought him up short, snarling. “I was not finished. Despite the trials and tribulations that you continually bestow upon me, you have been an unexpected source of joy in the desolation of my existence, Peter Quill. Your recent silence has been... _oppressive_... and you will tell me the reason for it.”

Peter promptly swung his arms up and stepped back, brushing off Ronan’s hold. “Are you kidding me right now? Talk about mixed signals, Ro,” he yelled, gesticulating emphatically. “Oh, _boo hoo_ , you got stuck with nanny duty. Tough shit. It’s not like I _chose_ to be abducted. I didn’t just wake up one day and figure ‘oh, hey, let’s go jump on a spaceship and annoy the piss out of some big, blue dude.’” He closed the space between them and jabbed his index finger into Ronan’s chest, bare but for the heavy lapels of his coat. “Cry me a river, dude. And like hell I’m avoiding you; this song and dance ain’t even about you. I’ve had it with following you around like a lovesick kid all the time, is all. I need to learn to live my own life. I’m sixteen now, got my own M-ship, and I ain’t wasting any more time on some washed-up Accuser asshole.”

They faced off for a long, tense moment, both with chests heaving and fists clenched. Ronan was the first to look away.  

“I see,” he stated simply. His fists went slack at his sides.

The sudden lack of challenge made Peter’s rising ire deflate. In that moment, he looked more like a lost teenager than the man that he was quickly becoming. “Ro, I didn’t mean...” he began, voice strained.

“It's of no consequence. I wish you well in your new life. You are dismissed,” Ronan responded as he continued to stand stock-still in the middle of the room and pointedly gaze at the stars in the viewport. His calm, aristocratic profile belied none of the inner turmoil.

Shame roiled heavily in Peter’s gut as he tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. After a long moment of indecision, he finally looked away and turned to go. As his palm settled in slow-motion on the hatch command panel, Ronan’s baritone voice rang out once more.

“If, in the future, you come to find that this new life allows for the inclusion of a foolishly sentimental Kree, you know where I may be found.”

Peter froze. The utilitarian craftsmanship of the ship-door was cold against his forehead as he bowed his head under the weight of Ronan’s words. “What did you just say?” he asked, eyes screwed tightly shut.

Despite the gulf between them, his soft question was colored by such tremulous hope that Ronan’s chest ached in sympathy. Whatever mishaps and misunderstandings had threatened to push them apart in the past solar year were suddenly inconsequential; that small spark of hope suggested that their bond was still salvageable.  

Ronan acquiesced to the implied command with a small nod. “Despite my best efforts, you have carved out a place for yourself beneath my skin. Regardless of the role that I am relegated to, I wish to remain a part of your life, my little Star-Lord.” A deep, bracing breath tested the integrity of his jacket seams.

Peter whipped around and stared him down, wide-eyed and incredulous. The anger that had so recently been tamped down, rose once more in force. "The hell, man?” He spluttered. “You can’t keep playing games like this, Ro! Your ‘little Star-Lord,’ seriously?” He ran his fingers through his already haphazard hair and pulled it even further into disarray. “I’m not a kid, anymore! You can’t sit here and pull that shit!”

Ronan merely weathered the storm of Peter’s tirade, face impassive, as always, beneath the layers of ceremonial paint. “By your species’ standards, you are still considered a minor,” he replied evenly, head cocked and eyes narrowed. Starlight from the viewport emphasized the stern set of his shoulders.

“Who cares what Terra thinks? I’m a Ravager now and I ain’t no goddamn kid! You want me to prove it?” Peter explosively protested once more, the petulance of his tone standing as further evidence of his youth. When his display failed to garner a reaction, he stormed across the room. The grate rang cacophonously with each vicious heel-strike.

As soon as he was within reaching distance, Peter snatched Ronan’s lapels and pulled with all of his not-inconsequential might. When the mountainous Kree remained unmoved, with the exception of a single raised brow, Peter rose up on his toes instead, lips pursed and eyelids fluttering closed.

Ronan immediately resisted, reeling back and grasping Peter’s upper arms with bruising force. “What do you think you are doing?” he snarled.  

“The hell does it look like?”

“It appears that you are willfully misinterpreting behavioral cues and about to make a grave mistake,” Ronan hissed in return.

Peter struggled to break his hold, writhing like a live wire until he exhausted himself and settled for glaring up at Ronan. The veil of his unkempt hair ruined the already impotent effect. “I ain’t misinterpreting anything. You wanna know why I’ve been avoiding you? Because of this,” he exclaimed, kicking Ronan’s shin in a show of pique.

“This?” Ronan ground out, at a loss.

“Yeah, _this_. I’ve seen the way you look at me, Ro. But you’re too chicken shit to do anything about it. So I figured maybe the silent treatment would get that bald head out of your butt and, guess what, it totally worked!” Peter crowed, triumphant.

For a long moment, Ronan could only gape at his guileless charge. The callowness of youth rang clear in his pronouncement. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that his motivations were the shallow, trite machinations of a child, but it did.

His hands fell away from Peter’s arms as he took a long stride back and turned to the safety of the viewport once more. He viciously scrubbed his face with his palms, smearing his painstakingly applied paint beyond salvaging. His own rapid breathing sounded loud in his ears. “Ignorant, vexing boy,” he growled, words muffled in his hands. The subsequent litany of unintelligible curses and expletives continued to escalate until he was near shouting.   

Peter stood stock-still, torn between staying and weathering the storm of Ronan’s fury or making a strategic retreat. However, the choice was quickly made for him. Ronan’s roar cut off abruptly as he went still and quiet, face still pressed firmly into his hands. Instead, he curled into himself and his chest began to heave in a series of hitched breaths.

“Um, Ronan? Ro? Are you okay?” Peter asked hesitantly as he dared to edge towards the bowed Kree. It was only as he approached and laid a tentative hand on Ronan’s back that he realized what he had mistaken for silent sobbing was actually breathless laughter. He ground his teeth and punched Ronan sharply where a kidney would have been, were he Terran.

“Screw you,” Peter hissed. “God, you’re such a dick.”

Before he could whirl away and flee what he took to be taunting, Ronan grabbed him by the arm once more and pulled him into a firm embrace.

He settled his chin atop of Peter’s ridiculous hair in an uncharacteristically open show of affection, as he hadn’t done since Peter was a boy. “Regardless of the attraction that you may harbor towards me, I will not allow any untoward propositions to come to fruition. You are still a child by your culture’s standards; It would be inappropriate. You are and will always be my little Star-Lord, Peter. I can give you this much and no more.”

“But, I love you! And I know you feel the same, even if you’re too much of an ass to admit it,” Peter murmured in protest against his chest.

“Ill-advised and irrelevant,” Ronan chided gently. “You were correct in your earlier claim; you should take the time to build a life for yourself. One that isn’t based on my ever-present influence. Though, I would ask that you refrain from cutting me out entirely, of course.”

Shaking his head, Peter buried his face further into the cleft of Ronan’s pectorals. “I wasn’t right. I was being a pouty little shit and you know it. I don’t want to lose you," he admitted.

Ronan breathed in the scent of his hair and held him all the more tightly. “You won’t. I will continue to stand at your side, Peter.” he began. After allowing himself a moment to revel in the rare instance of intimacy, he determinedly eased Peter away from him. “As your commanding officer.”

Chuckling wetly, Peter dashed the unshed moisture from his eyes and glanced up with a tenuous smile. “And occasional knight in shining armor when the crew threatens to eat me again?”

Ronan returned the small smile with a sly grin of his own. “My services are no longer required in that regard. You are now entirely too large to fit into the oven.” It was heartening to fall back into their typical banter, as if the past few weeks of silence had never occurred.

Peter rolled his eyes. He reached out and straightened Ronan’s lapels, fingers lingering a beat too long and skirting over a bit more skin than was quite necessary. “Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess I should go. After all, it probably isn’t _appropriate_ to be in my commanding officer’s bunk alone.” Despite his words, his voice dripped with possibility.

Ronan stood stock still. All comfort derived from their banter was quickly replaced by a flush of unease. “Peter,” he growled in warning.

With a snort of laughter, Peter patted his blue stomach affectionately and turned to take his leave. "I won’t give up, you know. It’s part of my charm. See ya ’round, Ro," he tossed over his shoulder before deftly operating the control panel and disappearing into the corridor.

Ronan flinched at the swish of the closing hatch door.

Heart pounding, he made his way over to his spartan kitchenette and poured himself a generous glass of liquid courage. The electric-blue liquor sloshed over the rim and onto the countertop, but he paid it no heed. A mountain of star charts awaited him at his work station, but for the life of him, he could find neither the energy nor the inclination to address them. He leaned against the counter and stared at his distorted reflection before taking a long pull of his drink. Dangerous thoughts that he had never before considered arose in his mind only to be summarily quashed by the searing flush of alcohol.

The next two years were going to be a trial, the likes of which he was ill prepared for.


	6. First Times (age 17)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter broaches the topic of feelings and incorporates visuals. Rated E

First Times (Age 17)

 

 

Ronan allowed himself a moment to appreciate just how well filled out Peter had become. Muscle rippled with each motion as he undressed, flexing along the curve of his lower back and down further, to the swell of his quite ample buttocks.

With a small, self-deprecating smile, Ronan reluctantly dropped his head back to the marble lip of the pool and let the afterimage of golden skin linger behind his eyelids. This young man was going to be the death of him.

As if summoned by his less-than-chaste thoughts, Peter silently entered on the opposite side of the pool. Despite Peter’s attempt to be circumspect in his approach, displaced water lapped gently up Ronan’s chest like a warm lover’s caress. The ploy was doomed to failure.

“On Hala you would be summarily executed for entering into an Accuser’s bathhouse without explicit invitation,” he pronounced, voice deep and rich in his contentment.

His statement was answered with a huff of laughter.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing we ain’t on Hala then,” Peter retorted as he gave up on his attempt at subversion in favor of splashing his way across the steaming shallows. Water sloshed against his abdomen, obscuring the full evidence of his nudity from Ronan’s half-lidded gaze. The Kree sent up a silent prayer in thanks for small mercies.

“It’s also quite fortuitous—doubly so for you—that I am no longer an Accuser,” he observed.

“Yeah, yeah.” Peter rolled his eyes. When the pool bottom sloped down beyond his reach, he dove under the water.

Ronan watched him swim the last few yards with casual ease, then shifted over on the sitting ledge to put a healthy distance between them. Peter surfaced in a burst of youthful exuberance, water sluicing down his shoulders and only serving to emphasize the breadth of his them. He gracefully hoisted himself up onto the ledge and groaned in pleasure.

“’S a really nice place. How’d you find out about it?” He blinked the water from his lashes as Ronan pointedly looked elsewhere.

“This planet was once a rather touted vacation resort for the Kree, before the war. Now it would appear to have fallen into disuse.”

“Lucky for us,” Peter announced, scooting closer with a puckish leer. The brazen tenacity of his overtures had only gained in potency as his birthday approached.

Being alone with Peter had begun to present a danger for which Ronan had little defense. He hummed noncommittally at Peter’s pronouncement and resorted to the only effective weapon he had against the overly amorous Terran, distasteful though it was.

“‘Luck’ is not the word that I would ascribe to the burden of spending yet another evening on this planet in your presence.”

The barb hit home. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, Peter abruptly halted his approach. “Dude, harsh! And what’s that even supposed to mean?”

Ronan winced at the high-pitched note of affront in Peter’s voice. “It means that, after having retrieved and hauled your intoxicated dead-weight halfway across the spaceport last night, I was aiming for an evening that was free of insufferable, Terran complications.”

Peter gesticulated wildly in his defense. “Oh, no, no, no. I wasn’t drunk!” he immediately shot back, only to waver under Ronan’s fierce and immediate glare. “Okay, fine, I was maybe just a little tipsy. Nothing I couldn’t handle!”

Ronan grunted, playing up the part of being wholly unconvinced.

“Seriously, man. I was managing just fine! It’s not like I needed you to come save me or nothing. I ain’t no damsel and you sure as hell ain’t my hero,” Peter insisted. As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew that they were a mistake. His eyes widened comically as Ronan’s broad jaw clenched. “Ro, I—”

“You will be silent now, Peter Quill.”

“Have you met me?” he muttered petulantly.

Ronan leveled him with a glare strong enough to make him well and truly fall quiet. Once satisfied, the Kree shifted his weight to turn more fully toward Peter. 

“I will explain the matter in words small enough for you to grasp. I, the second-in-command of the most notorious band of interstellar space-pirates to grace the quadrant, was forced to resort to bribing a new-hire security official in an attempt to convince the knock-kneed refuse heap that it was against his better interest to arrest my Captain’s underage son on charges of public intoxication and assault with a class nine weapon.  _ Bribery _ , Peter. Is there any crime more unpalatable than the exchange of money for favors?” Raised blue veins stood out in stark relief on his temples as he fought to bring his voice back down from the roar into which it had crept.

Still, a dark blush suffused his cheeks all the way down to his heaving chest as he continued.

“Please do share the clever plan that the infamous  _ Star-Lord _ had concocted before I arrived to scrape his sodden remnants off of a barstool. Do share what you would have done in my absence. I debased myself, not to playact as your vaunted hero, but because I hold my family in the highest of regard. You would do well to remember that.” While the argument successfully managed to detract from Peter’s attempts at seduction, it was not Ronan’s intent for it to grow so heated. The miscalculation squirmed uncomfortably in his gut.

Steam wafted between them, seeming thicker in the extended stretch of silence. Finally, Peter looked away.

“Sorry, Ro,” he murmured, contrite. Upon his apology, the topic died. Instead, he turned his attentions to morosely smacking his palms against the water and watching the little eddies of light reflect off of the resultant ripples. Anything was better than facing the yoke of Ronan’s disapproval.

With a long suffering sigh, Ronan melted back against the pool edge once more and made a show of ignoring Peter completely. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back, exposing the long line of his throat. However, the tight set of his shoulders belied the tensions still strung taut between the two of them.

Peter eyed him sidelong. The Kree’s blue chest glimmered in the light, dappled gray by water droplets and bounded by the crisp edges of tattoo ink along his ribs and shoulders. Despite Ronan’s simmering anger, it was a temptation far too sweet to ignore. After all, he was already one foot in the shit heap, he figured that he might as well jump in.

He continued to pat the water as a diversion whilst he inched closer. However, each subtle shift, every noise meant to obfuscate and disarm, telegraphed his intent.

“Either be silent and still or leave, insipid Terran pest,” Ronan snarled softly. Discomfited and still coming down from his outburst, there was perhaps a bit more venom in the command than he had initially intended.

“But I just got here, man,” Peter pointed out. “And I was thinking, since I fucked—”

“Such coarse language,” Ronan interrupted in the vague hope of cutting the young man off before he could build steam with whatever nonsense was about to spill from his lips.

“Since I  _ fucked _ up so bad last night,” he continued emphatically, “maybe I could make it up to you now. You know, like give you a massage or something. I mean, I can’t take back the stupid shit that I did, but I could take your mind off of it at least. Work out some of your kinks.”

The husk in his voice captured Ronan’s full attention. He sat up in a slow, measured manner, reminiscent of a serpent uncoiling. His ploy to circumvent Peter’s overtures had failed spectacularly, it would seem.

“Peter, we’ve discussed this on multiple occasions. You are playing a dangerous game and it stops now,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I’ve had more than my fill of your insipid ploys.”

Sighing mightily, Peter slipped from the ledge into the water and slowly paddled closer. He placed his hands on Ronan’s knees to keep his head above the surface while he tread water.

“I was just offerin’ an apology that was more than just my flapping gums. Though, we could always start there.” His tongue darted out to moisten his lips. “I wouldn’t want to do anything  _ inappropriate _ , after all.”

Each lazy kick in the water sent waves cresting up and over his shoulders. Ronan eyed every each inch of skin as it was revealed and submerged once more. He cleared his throat.

“Peter Quill, you are an unmitigated little shit,” he muttered uncharacteristically, voice thick.

“‘Such coarse language,’” Peter shot back, knowing that he had won.

Succumbing to temptation, Ronan reached forward and buried one hand in Peter’s sopping wet nest of curls. He would allow himself that much. “I accept your offer...of an apology and no more.”

It would have been simplicity itself at that moment to pull Peter forward and press his face down into the warm water, guiding his mouth to where Ronan needed it most. Instead, he scraped together the last vestiges of his self-control and gave a sharp tug upwards. “Now, get up here, troublesome boy.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter answered breathlessly. His pectorals and the thick cords of muscle defining his arms swelled enticingly under the effort of bracing himself against Ronan’s thighs and lifting his body from the water. This wasn’t what the Kree had intended in his overly-generalized command, but Peter certainly wasn’t going to let an opportunity this good go to waste. Before Ronan could react, he swung up first one leg, then the other, and planted his knees firmly astride the Kree’s lap.

Water surged against the lip of the pool and threatened to overflow.

“Damnit, Peter!” Ronan instinctively grabbed his waist, thumbs slipping into the divots formed by the dangerous V of Peter’s abdominals, to steady him. The hand placement was inadvertent yet still sent a curl of desire deep into Ronan’s loins at the feel of wet, forbidden skin.

That one sweet burst of flame bloomed into the beginnings of a conflagration when Peter’s naked buttocks came to settle against his thighs.

“Remove yourself from my lap immediately,” he snarled, his words stuttering, then breaking on a low groan. Despite the command to the contrary, he held onto Peter all the more tightly.

In response, Peter draped his forearms across Ronan’s shoulders and experimentally rolled his hips forward. His gambit was met with an answering arousal that stood tall and buoyant in the pool despite being only half-filled.

“Do you really want me to?” he inquired huskily.

A fine tremor took root in Ronan’s hands. “You know we cannot.”

“That’s not an answer, Ro. Anyways, you said that an apology was okay. That’s all this is; just me sayin’ sorry,” Peter’s own hands slid down the topography of Ronan’s body, kneading and attempting to coax the taut muscles into relaxation. In a matter of moments, his path took him down into the warm water.

Ronan let out a half-startled gasp as Peter immediately zeroed in on his erection and gave an experimental, but confident, stroke. Gravitational singularity itself couldn’t keep him from bucking into that sweet vice. Sensing victory, Peter continued to explore the swollen ridges and spongy glans that had so captivated his thoughts in many a late-night solo mission. He leaned in close enough for his stubble to tickle the shell of Ronan’s ear.

“See, nothin’ to get your panties in a wad over,” he whispered, bicep flexing rhythmically.

Ronan removed one hand from Peter’s hips and flexed it a couple of times to work out the stiffness in his knuckles. Peter would likely have a belt of purple trophies come morning, he thought idly before taking a fistful of Peter’s unruly hair once more and holding him in place.

“This is nothing so guiltless and you know it, infuriating  _ child _ .” He followed the admonishment with a firm nip to Peter’s neck. It would be simplicity itself to test the extent of the give in the supple skin beneath his teeth, to lay his mark. With a Herculean effort, he settled for allowing himself a light kiss and no more.

Peter was incensed. “Seriously? Cut the shit. You know I’m not a kid and in three months your excuses won’t count for crap.”

He abandoned his stroking in favor of snapping his hips forward to pin both of their heated erections between them. Ronan’s generous cock settled into the channel between Peter’s thigh and scrotum. Encased by firm flesh and the warmth of the pool, Ronan could only hiss at the overwhelming sensation of being so close to what he truly needed.

“Peter, this needs to stop,” he whispered unconvincingly.

Without warning, Peter lifted himself and dropped the scant inches back down onto Ronan’s lap. Water lapped over the pool’s edge with each subsequent repetition.

“You…don’t…get to…make…decisions…for me,” he ground out on each descent. His thighs burned, but the sensation was made inconsequential compared to the throbbing need pinned against solid blue flesh.

Ronan watched in wonderment as a myriad of blissed out expressions flit across on Peter’s face.

“P-Peter.”

Their eyes locked at the prayerful utterance. As one, they leaned toward each other and met in a long-awaited kiss.

Though awkward at first, they quickly fell into a rhythm of give and take that spoke everything of easy familiarity. Ronan clung like a man drowning and sought to gather every last breath of air from Peter’s lungs. They reluctantly break apart, chests heaving, only to surge together once more. The water violently splashed around them in concert to the rhythm of their passions.

Ronan pistoned his hips without reservation. His natural lubricant eased the way between their bodies even in the mineral-laden water surrounding them.

Peter dragged his nails, fingers hooked like claws, across Ronan’s broad back in an attempt to tear furrows into the lines of ink already there. His precome leaked steadily into the channel of Ronan’s abdominals where his cock was pressed. It was immediately swept away by their continued thrashing.

His pent-up need to penetrate and claim was far too powerful to stave off orgasm for very long. This facsimile would have to suffice for the time being.

Ronan took Peter’s buttocks in hand and forcibly guided their rhythm, turning it into something faster and more lurid. Starbursts flitted beneath Peter’s fluttering eyelids as orgasm approached. His toes curled and every muscle locked until his singular focus was the sweet friction surrounding his cock. After a brief, hovering moment, the floodgates crumbled beneath the weight of his release. Peter came with an unfettered yell, Ronan soon after with a choked gasp.

Ropes of translucent come drifted away on the waves, leaving no lingering evidence of their misconduct.

Ronan groaned in surrender, chest heaving, as his head dropped back and hit the marble with a hollow smack. “Apology accepted.”

Peter grunted his agreement, then collapsed onto his chest and panted into the flushed skin of his neck. Several minutes passed in the warm afterglow as they regained their breath and took comfort in the feel of each other’s body.

Peter languorously traced the edges of Ronan’s tattoos. “You know, three months is an awfully long time,” he murmured, hesitant to break the contented silence between them.

Ronan gathered him close and planted a tender kiss on his forehead. “We’ll manage,” he stated simply. He felt the stretch of Peter’s lips as they slid into what was surely a blinding smile.

“Or, here’s an idea.” Peter wriggled his hips in lazy invitation. “How about you get over yourself and just shove it in like we both know you want to?” 

Without warning, Ronan abruptly shoved him off of his lap and into the deep end. A furious fountain of bubbles burst on the water’s surface.


	7. Differences and Similarities (Age 18)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Ronan compare notes. Rated E

Tracking Ronan’s missing M-ship through the thick storms of a small beta-class planetoid had been simplicity itself. Bypassing the ship’s security measures and breaking into Ronan’s quarters was easier still. However, stripping down to his aptly named birthday suit was turning out to be more of a challenge than Peter had anticipated.

He eyed the chronometer on his wrist and frantically tore at his clothing. His coat fell to the floor with a wet slap, quickly followed by his shirt. Wriggling desperately to escape the confines of his pants, he managed to shove the wet leathers down to pool around his ankles. However, the impromptu shackles unbalanced him and sent him careening to the floor in a graceless sprawl.

“Shit! I don’t have time for this,” he groaned as he unceremoniously pushed up onto his hands and knees and took the opportunity to toe off his boots. Scrambling out of his remaining clothing was short work after that.

Finally nude, he hopped up from the floor and jogged towards the large, but utilitarian bed. His cock slapped against his thighs with each stride. Tumbling inelegantly onto it, Peter rubbed his face against the linens, grinning broadly in anticipation. The primly tucked sheets smelled like Ronan, all peat moss and ozone.

Patting his rain-damp hair into something vaguely resembling order, Peter laid out on his side and propped his head up on one elbow. He tried out a couple of different positions with his free arm in order to best draw attention to the swell of his musculature. After a couple of aborted attempts, he finally settled on resting his hand on his upraised knee and adopting a well-practiced come-hither stare, then checked his chronometer once more.

Right on time, the sharp report of Ronan’s footfalls came to a stop just on the other side of the hatch.

Following a swift series of beeps, the hatchway swept open and Ronan made to enter his quarters. Instead, he froze, stock-still, with one foot hovering just past the threshold.

On the bed, Peter’s poor attempt at a seductive pout quickly morphed into a Cheshire grin. “So, what’s a hunky Kree like you doing in a place like this?” he simpered.

Ronan sighed heavily and ran a palm across his face, hoping that the pitiful spectacle was simply a hallucination induced by stress and too long nights. When he opened his eyes once more, it was to the very real sight of Peter wiggling his hips. He promptly turned back toward the doorway and exited without a word.

“Wait, Ro!” Peter called out as he scrambled off of the bed. Tripping over his own feet, he fell against the hatchway frame and clutched it tightly. The fear of rejection settled heavily in his gut and near choked him. Without pause, he flung himself into the corridor and staggered to a stop. Ronan sat, not two strides down the hall, back against the hull and head tilted toward the swaying overhead light fixtures. His face was as impassive as ever, but there was a sag in his shoulders that Peter couldn’t recall having seen before.

Heedless of his nudity, Peter approached and knelt next to Ronan. He reached out hesitantly, but stopped short of touching his skin. “Ro? You okay?” he asked quietly. When he received no response, he dared to close the distance and stroke his fingertips down Ronan’s strong jawline. The touch garnered no reaction. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Peter instead climbed over Ronan’s extended legs and straddled his thighs. He dragged his thumb across Ronan’s bottom lip and chased it with a chaste kiss, light as a zephyr.

“Seriously, man. Talk to me.”

Ronan’s palms trailed up the curve of his folded calves and further, to settle with his thumbs buried in the creases where Peter’s thighs joined his body. “What is there to say? You’ve bested me, Peter. Two-hundred Terran years of service as the most vaunted Supreme Accuser in galactic history, twenty-two more as the second-in-command to the infamous Yondu Udonta, and here I am, inexplicably felled by the sexual avarice of a child.”

“Sexual what? Dude, It’s my eighteenth birthday. I’m a man!” Peter proclaimed, though he had the grace to look sheepish whilst doing so. His cheeks flushed bright pink and his voice grew strained. “A very naked, very fuckable, man.”

Ronan began to shake until his repressed mirth bubbled forth. Once the sluice gates had been opened, his rich laughter came in great gales that tightened his stomach and left him breathless. He curled over and buried his face in the juncture of Peter’s neck and shoulder. Ronan’s thick arms wrapped around his charge and crushed their bodies together. At a loss, Peter froze and let it happen, eyes wide and wild at the tactile display.

“You are an unrefined, unfettered gift, and a pox on any rational sensibilities that I may have once had,” Ronan rumbled into his skin after he had sobered enough to speak. “Peter Quill, my imbecilic Star-Lord.”

Only then did Peter relax with a chuckle of his own. He lifted his pelvis, just enough to unstick the leather of Ronan’s pants from his bare skin, and shifted forward until his flaccid cock was pressed between them. He wrapped his arms around Ronan’s shoulders and nuzzled a patch of silvery scars on his neck. “Ro,” he murmured, following the entreaty with a tender nip to the shell of his ear. “You haven’t wished me a happy birthday yet.”

“And you have yet to disclose how you managed to track my ship, much less boarded it unbeknownst to my security scanners,” Ronan retorted.

Peter leaned back just enough to meet his half-lidded gaze, the image blurry from such close proximity. “That’s, uh, your fault, you know?” he said with a huff of laughter.

“Oh?”

“You’re the one who had the bright idea of putting me on engine duty last week. I figured you’d chicken out today, so I kinda added a work around,” Peter explained cheekily.

“Then I have only myself to blame.” Ronan held Peter tightly to his front and, with a grunt of effort, rocked to his feet. The warm press of muscle against his chest and the strong thighs wrapped around his hips felt like inevitability. He let his eyelids fall shut and allowed himself to take a deep breath of Peter’s scent, committing it to memory.  

Peter squirmed enticingly in his embrace. “Take me to bed,” he suggested in a husky voice that would have made Sephro proud.

Scoffing, Ronan reached back and uncrossed Peter’s ankles, then leaned forward so that his bare feet could return to the ground. Peter continued to cling to his neck, reluctant to lose ground on the intimacy that he had fought so hard to gain. “Ro? Come on, don’t—”

Ronan winced at the plaintive note of Peter’s protest.  

“If I choose to take you apart, it will not be without first tending to your needs, Peter. Now, come, I will prepare a meal whilst silently regretting every decision in my life that has lead to this precise moment,” Ronan pronounced. He rubbed a palm soothingly down Peter’s back and shuddered slightly at the thought of taking and mapping all of that sun-kissed skin, as if by right.  

“Harsh, man!” Peter whined. His arms slipped bonelessly from Ronan’s shoulders. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips, arms akimbo and hip canted. He glared at Ronan from beneath furrowed brows.

Ronan fixed the collar of his coat and subtly readjusted his inseam before turning to reenter his quarters. “Come,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Peter stumbled in his haste to follow, curiosity overriding his fleeting offense. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“There are many things that you do not know about me, yet you continue to blindly press your suit,” Ronan shot over his shoulder. He entered his quarters, noting his wrinkled sheets and the pile of Peter’s sopping wet leathers. With a snort, he moved on and retrieved a pair of drawstring pants from a pocket panel in the hull. He absently tossed them over his shoulder.

Peter deftly caught them one-handed. “What are these for?” he asked, brow raised and lips pursed.

“To preserve the last vestiges of your dignity,” Ronan muttered.

The put-upon eyeroll that his chiding tone elicited was powerful enough to break orbit. Peter ran his fingers through his hair and sighed dramatically. “Oh, please, like you’re one to talk. The _Eclector_ ’s seen that blue butt so many times half the crew could probably draw it by memory,” he drawled.

Ronan paused to turn and slowly pan his gaze down Peter’s bare body and back up to the rosy blush on his cheeks. “I was not referring to your nudity, Peter,” he stated, then swept into his generous kitchen and busied himself with retrieving items from the stasis drawers.

“Ouch,” Peter hissed softly as he eyed the silk-like material in his hand. It slipped through his fingers as he toyed with it. Stooping to retrieve the pants from where they had puddled on the floor, he discretely brushed them across his cheek. Like the sheets, they smelled like Ronan. He stood back up, slipped them on quickly, and rolled the cuffs to accommodate for his shorter legs before following Ronan into the kitchen.

The kitchen was a luxurious affair for such a small ship. It had obviously been carved out of the space reserved for one of the extra sets of crew quarters. Counters made of a milky, translucent polymer jutted out from the hull and swept round in a graceful yet utilitarian curve, occasionally overlapping or intertwining to make storage space. They caught the ambient light and converted it into their own ethereal glow.

Peter whistled and ran his hand across the surface nearest to him, delighting in the way the light flared brighter at his touch. “Damn, dude, you don’t do things by halves,” he stated, voice raw with unabashed admiration.

Snorting, Ronan set a peculiar yellow fruit on the surface near him and busied himself with retrieving a knife from one of the elegant pockets formed by the countertops. “Nor, it would appear, do you,” he admitted. A reluctant fondness was evident in his voice as he proceeded to slice into the fruit, revealing soft purple flesh.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have had to if some blue asshole woulda just stayed on the _Eclector_ instead of flying off to the most ass-backwards moon in the quadrant,” Peter sniped. He effortlessly hoisted his bulk onto the counter and perched on the edge, instinctively swinging his feet as they dangled.

Ronan remained silent on the subject in favor of mashing the fruit innards to pulp with the heel of his hand.

“Well? You got anything to say for yourself?” Peter pressed.

Ronan kneed the stretch of hull beneath his work space and retrieved a package of black meat from the stasis field. He proceeded to slice it into strips and braid it into elegant knots, first painting each newly laid strip with purple pulp. “I do not. Now remove your questionable Terran hygiene from my counter top.”

Peter’s swinging feet sped up. “Come-on, Ro. It’s my eighteenth birthday! You shoulda been there for me like you promised! Is it me? Did I do something to piss you off?” he whined.

Sighing heavily, Ronan set down his work, tidied his hands in the sanitization field above his head, and turned towards Peter. The young man made quite the beautiful sight, all soft angles and tawny skin turned golden by the light of the counter beneath him. Ronan steeled himself and crossed the space between them.  

“Everything you do incites my anger,” he pronounced, ignoring the unimpressed glare that he earned in response. “Though, not in this instance. I am—” Ronan paused for a beat and rested his hands on Peter’s knees before continuing, “—unaccustomed to the things I desire being so freely given.” He kneaded Peter’s firm quads and followed the line of muscle up to his hips. Only when Peter moaned softly did he remember himself and attempt to step back.

Quick as a snake strike, Peter kicked out and wrapped his legs around Ronan’s hips, trying to pull him inexorably closer. However, the silky material of his pants and Ronan’s staunch resistance coupled to make him slide off of the edge of the counter instead. Ronan caught him easily.

Clutching Ronan’s shoulders and hips, Peter nuzzled close and pressed his advantage. “You know, that almost sounded like an apology,” he murmured.

Ronan set him back onto the counter, but made no move to pull away. He ran one hand reverently down Peter’s jaw, fingertips rasping against the stubble. “So it did,” he conceded. A quiet tension thrummed just beneath his skin.

Peter sighed. “You could just say you’re sorry,” he said, voice thick with an odd mix of exasperation and arousal.

“I could,” Ronan agreed once again. He tightened his embrace until their chests were flush, then smoothed one hand up Peter’s back, settling it, hot and heavy, on the nape of his neck. Peter’s eyes slid shut when the softness of Ronan’s lips pressed tenderly against his forehead.

“It’s really not that hard. Here, say it with me,” Peter chided gently. He sucked in a ragged breath, near tasting the metallic scent of Ronan’s skin. “I’m…” he said slowly. The lips on his forehead flattened out as they stretched into a grin.  

“I’m…” Ronan rumbled in his deep baritone. He made no attempt to restrain his amusement.

“Sor-ry…” Peter continued, breaking up the word as if it were too difficult to speak in one go.

Ronan leaned back far enough to meet his eyes. His smile fell in increments at the hopeful yearning he found there. “Sorry.” His voice flowed, smooth as velvet in its unabashed honesty.

They shared breath for a long, pregnant moment until Peter tilted his head and pulled Ronan down, as if in slow motion.

Sucking in a ragged breath, Ronan watched as he moistened his lips with a brief dart of his tongue. Then, with surprising ferocity, Ronan surged down and chased the taste of him. The kiss was a graceless, violent thing, filled with such desperation that Peter could only groan into it and accept the pain. He clawed frantically at Ronan’s back and neck, dragging pale furrows into the leather of his coat.

The ebb and flow of their battle was loud with the clash of shared breath. Peter rolled his pelvis to garner what friction he could where his cock bobbed, half tumescent. The material of his pants made for a sweet glide as he thrust his rapidly engorging length up along the furrow of Ronan’s abdominals. Ronan ignored the sudden line of dampness as it cooled on his skin, a testament to Peter’s youthful vigor.

They parted, breathless and still wanting, only when their lungs demanded it.

Heartbeat thrumming in his ears, Peter crushed them together once more and sought the benediction of Ronan’s mouth. Each stroke of his tongue brought forth a tart shock from the fruit that Ronan had obviously sampled whilst having prepared it. The rumbling groan that his rough ministrations elicited felt like victory.

It was with great reluctance that Ronan broke the kiss. “Peter,” he growled, chest vibrating with the power of his reverent entreaty. His fingers sank into Peter’s damp hair and held his head still when Peter, lips swollen and cheeks flushed, immediately tried to close the gap again. “Is _this_ truly what you would ask of me?”

Peter could only stare up at him in wonderment. “Fuck, yeah. I’ve been waitin’ a long time for you to get with the program.” He punctuated his enthusiasm with another lewd roll of his hips. The throbbing erection pressed between them stood tall, as alarmingly flushed beneath his silk pants as the red flag it represented.   

“This is a terrible idea,” Ronan sighed. His brow furrowed as his convictions vacillated.

Nodding in agreement, Peter slid his calves over the swell of Ronan’s leather-clad buttocks and down further to rest on the backs of his thighs. “The worst,” he agreed cheerily. Then, grinning all the while, he ground his heels into the backs of Ronan’s knees and made his legs buckle.

Ronan’s hands slammed down on the counter in an instinctive bid to keep himself upright. Without hesitation, Peter grabbed his lapels and surged forward to forcibly take the kiss that he had been denied. Their lips didn’t line up quite right, but he adjusted for the miscalculation quickly enough.

However, his victory was short lived.

Ronan abruptly grabbed him by the neck and shoved him down into a half sprawl on the countertop, fire in his eyes. “You would dare?” he ground out.

Peter groaned and bucked his hips in the air as well as he could, engorged cock twitching at the eroticism of it all. “Yup,” he gasped, popping the ‘p’ and raising an eyebrow in challenge. “And I’m gonna _dare_ a lot more until you stop draggin’ your damn heels, Ro!” With that, he reached across his body and jabbed the crook of Ronan’s elbow, hard. When it unlocked, he used the momentum of his swing to roll opposite and break the hold. The maneuver put him right where he wanted to be, bent over the counter beneath Ronan’s immense bulk, on tiptoes and with his ass pressed firmly against body-warmed leather.

For a brief moment, Ronan admired the way the muscle of Peter’s back and arms rippled beneath him. Peter truly had filled out into a powerhouse of a man. A man whom had chased his absentee paramour halfway across the star system in order to willingly offer up the most intimate parts of himself. Ronan licked his lips and closed his eyes as the renewed fight drained out of him. He settled his hands on the taper of Peter’s waist.

“Peter,” he growled, voice breaking on the last syllable.

Sensing the shift in mood, Peter pushed up onto his elbows and craned his neck to glance back. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Ronan answered with a derisive snort. He backed up, hands lingering on Peter’s hips before slipping away and falling to his sides instead. Turning in place, he silently returned to the food preparation area in two long strides and flicked a sequence of sigils embedded in the glowing countertop. They flashed blue, then the half-readied meal sunk into a stasis bin with a sharp hiss.

Peter slid off of the counter and readjusted himself with a wince. “Umm, Ro, what gives? I, uh, thought we were on the same page here,” he asked, proud that his voice only quavered once.

Task complete, Ronan returned to his side and stared down at Peter’s scrunched brow and parted lips. He had never before seen such a look of pained confusion. “I will not stake my claim of you for the first time in a kitchen,” he offered casually, then swept past en route to the bedroom.

It took a moment for Peter to process the implication of the statement. When he had, his eyebrows shot up towards his hairline and his cheeks ached from the force of his blooming smile. He let out a joyous whoop and took off sprinting after Ronan. His shoulder slammed into the doorway of the bedroom in his haste, making him stumble. He rebounded with determination and dove onto the awaiting mattress. He bounced once and tore off his borrowed pants in a series of awkward wriggles, irreparably mussing the sheets in the process.  

Ronan eyed the wanton spectacle before him and looked to the ceiling as if the metal struts held the solution to his fraying patience.

“I ain’t getting any younger, here,” Peter teased in poor taste.

Swallowing past the sudden constriction in his throat, Ronan began to unhurriedly shrug out of his coat. “A fact for which I am infinitely grateful,” he stated. His Ravager coat fell to the floor in a heap with its stylized flame regalia shining up at him, accusing. He turned from it and approached the bed.

Harsh lights emanating from above cast Peter’s body in sharp relief. Each shift and flex only emphasized the generous musculature he had gained in the past year. He ran his flattened palms down his chest and stomach with an exaggerated moan, grinning all the while Ronan stalked closer. With teenage exuberance, his hands fell to where his cock arched down to kiss his stomach, swollen and already leaking into his bellybutton. He wrapped one hand around his erection and spread his legs wide as he loosely stroked his foreskin down to reveal the purple head of his arousal.

“Like what you see?” he asked.

Ronan subconsciously wet his lips. “Despite my better judgement, I have for sometime now. You are beautiful, Peter,” he admitted.

Peter’s eyelids fluttered shut and his pelvis thrust sharply into his fist as if of its own volition. His free hand reached down further and fondled the soft, textured skin of his scrotum. “Fuck. Keep talking, dude. Tell me more about how awesome I am.”

Scoffing, Ronan toed off his boots and unfastened his weapons belts. He took his time in removing them. “You are truly a wanton creature. Uncouth, undiscerning, and ruled by your passions to the exclusion of good sense,” he drawled. The bed dipped beneath his added weight.

“Hey! That’s totally not what I meant!” Peter exclaimed in mock offense as he abandoned his self stimulation in favor of propping himself onto his elbows and leveling a scathing glare at Ronan’s back.

“Wasn’t it?”

Groaning in frustration, Peter rolled onto all fours and backed off of the bed in order to level him with the entirety of his unimpressed stare. Deep shadows made Ronan’s purple irises stand out starkly, breathtakingly alien, as he met the challenge in kind. Everything about Ronan was so inhuman, so new and enticing. Heart racing in mounting anticipation, Peter abandoned the battle of wills in favor of easing down and straddling Ronan’s thighs. Ronan accepted his weight without hesitation.  

Once situated, Peter ran a teasing palm down his own chest and tweaked a nipple as he sat astride Ronan’s lap. The chill of Ronan’s leathers pressed against his buttocks for the second time that evening.

“I really like this position, you know,” he murmured as he mercilessly twisted the already swollen nipple with a soft groan.

“And why is that?” Ronan asked. Though he attempted to appear stoic, there was no concealing the way his hands fisted in the bed linens, knuckles white, nor the way his pupils began to dilate and devour the purple irises until they were shark-black.

“Because, for once, I’m taller than you,” Peter teased with a broad smile. He cupped Ronan’s jaw and leaned in for a kiss that was returned with obvious restraint. Taking the reluctance as a challenge, Peter pressed at the back of Ronan’s neck and tilted his head until they slotted together with no break in the seal between their lips. He rutted against Ronan’s stomach, all youthful exuberance, and attempted to memorize every taste of the Kree.

Ronan let Peter explore until the risk of hyperventilation grew to be a concern, then broke for air. He settled his forehead against Peter’s brow, ignoring the way it crinkled in confusion against him, and clamped his eyes shut against the siren call of Peter’s youthful body.

“Peter.” He groaned in a baritone rumble that the translator could barely interpret. “Is this truly what you want?” He paused and ground his teeth.

Peter’s small frown settled into something far softer, something that would likely have ruined Ronan had he seen it.

“Ro, that’s the second time you’ve asked,” Peter murmured. He stroked Ronan’s taut shoulders and skated up the wide flare of his upper traps. There, he kneaded the hard muscle with his thumbs and nuzzled against his temple. A thin patina of perspiration made their skin stick. “Dude, I’ve loved you for such a long time,” he admitted.

“The undiscerning affections of a child for their caretaker,” Ronan protested, though the distinct sound of tearing fabric belied his true feelings on the subject.

“At first, yeah. But, I told you, I ain’t no kid anymore. Touch me, Ro,” Peter commanded. He abandoned the impromptu massage to instead slide his hands down Ronan’s arms. The bulging muscle quivered with tension beneath his palms. Ronan’s forearms were as forgiving as steel cables and his grip of the sheets just as solid.

“Please.”

The whispered entreaty was what finally broke through the sluice gates. Ronan surged forward and crushed them together. He wrapped one arm about the taper of Peter’s waist, and clasped the other around his shoulders. First extending his fingers to ease the stiffness from his joints, he carded his fingers through Peter’s curls and took hold.

This time, they kissed with equal desperation.

Peter winced as the quick movement peeled the leather from the skin of his thighs and buttocks, but continued to meet Ronan’s tongue with unbridled passion.

Heat billowed between them, made thick by sweat and the scent of Peter’s precome.

Displaying his own substantial strength, Peter bowled them both backwards such that Ronan’s back hit the sheets.

Ronan growled into his mouth and used the new position to take a firm hold of Peter’s buttocks. The flesh gave beneath his fingers and drew out a desperate moan. Peter rolled his hips with more urgency than finesse in an attempt to garner friction where he needed it most.

“Can’t believe”—he began, pulling away breathlessly, only to swoop down once more—“this is”—he groaned into another searing kiss—“actually happening.” Fire raced up his spine and near threatened to suffocate him when Ronan replied with a strong undulation of his own hips. The leather of his pants pinched at far too delicate skin, but Peter paid the ache no heed. Instead, he met each increasingly tumescent thrust with a hitched breath and questing hands.

Ronan’s head dropped back to the bed when Peter’s thumb circled a dark blue nipple and pinched it with as little mercy as he had his own. Saliva made Ronan’s swollen lips shine in the cabin light as his mouth hung open in a silent O.

“You are a cruel bedfellow, Terran,” he snarled, voice hitching when Peter’s tongue and teeth joined his fingers.

Peter chuckled against his skin and gave one last teasing lick to Ronan’s abused nipple. “Don’t even start with the ‘Terran’ crap,” he chided.

Ronan pulled his head up to glare at the beautiful man above him and paused at the sight. A heavy blush stained Peter’s cheeks and only emphasized the cherry red of his lips where his tongue darted out to moisten them. His hair hung in tightly cropped ringlets, still damp from the rain and heat of arousal. But, above all else, it was the admiration and need that burned in Peter’s green eyes that put the final nail in Ronan’s coffin.  

“My Star-Lord, then,” Ronan choked out.

He rolled them both over effortlessly, then snatched Peter’s wrists and pressed them tightly against his heaving chest. The weight of Peter’s naked thighs clamped around his hips drew out a series of instinctive thrusts that rocked the bed with their power. Every taboo drag of skin, every press of solid flesh, stoked the fire in his veins. Need near blinded him, stabbing sharply into his oversensitive loins. Finally, the pain of his trapped arousal grew to be too much. Ronan released Peter, battled away from his strong grasp, and shuffled off of the bed with a strangled groan.  

Peter immediately reached for him and scooted forward to sit up at the edge, eyes wide with uncertainty. The sheets bunched around his thighs, disheveling the bed further.

“Where are you...uh,” he began to protest, only to swallow his words at the sight of Ronan dipping his thumbs into his waistband. Even so small a movement revealed several more precious inches of blue abdominal. The deep furrows between muscle and thigh tapered down with each shove of his leathers until they ended at the apex of a swollen, generously weeping cock. Once free, it sprung up to meet Ronan’s stomach with a meaty smack.

Peter subconsciously licked his lips at the quite obvious evidence of Ronan’s arousal. “Holy shit. I’ve wanted to get my hands on this for a long time,” he confessed, voice thick.

“As I recall, you already have,” Ronan retorted slyly. His cock twitched under Peter’s intense scrutiny and a bead of self lubricant mixed with precome leaked down its ribbed belly.

Peter huffed and rubbed at his stubble. “Fine, _my mouth_ , then,” he drawled. Before Ronan could finish pushing his pants fully past his thighs, Peter took a double handful of his buttocks and pulled him so hard that he stumbled. Ronan caught himself on Peter’s shoulders and hissed at the hot breath suddenly puffing over his dark blue cockhead.  

He pushed his hips back in surprise, but Peter’s amorous grip on his flesh was unforgiving, strong even by Kree standards.

Before Ronan could rally any sort of resistance, a curious tongue flicked out to taste the stream of precome leaking from his tip and teased each pair of lubricating pores on his ridges. He had, of course, been aware of Peter’s tactless surveillance in the communal showers over the past couple of years, but he did not realize the extent to which his charge had already learned the eccentricities of his body.

Another wave of fluid coated Peter’s tongue, viscous and earthy. He moaned with obvious relish and ducked forward to chase the taste in earnest. The blunt head of Ronan’s dick slipped between his lips with ease, but that relatively tapered tip gave rise to a thick girth that tested his limits and made his jaw ache. Each swollen ridge caught at the seal of his lips and made a lewd sucking sound until it too was swallowed.

“You are... exceptionally proficient at this,” Ronan rumbled as he anchored his hands in Peter’s mop of hair to weather the storm. His thighs shook imperceptibly.

Peter paused as his mouth tightened around Ronan’s shaft in a grin at the thought of the well-used Kree sex toy in his storage compartment. Eyes fluttering closed, he redoubled his efforts. While his throat battled the massive intrusion, his tongue sought the slight depressions where Kree lubricant flowed and massaged them mercilessly with what little space he had to work. Each rough swipe brought forth a breathy growl from above him. Ronan’s fists tightened in his hair to the point of pain. Even so, he pressed onward, unrelenting.

“Peter,” Ronan called prayerfully to the ceiling. His hips began to rock of their own accord.

Feeling Ronan’s ridges become more prominent from the sheer force of his arousal, Peter took a deep breath, then surged forward. His eyes welled with moisture as he swallowed furiously against his body’s rejection of the massive cock wedged deep within him. He pulled back, nostrils flared, and thrust forward once more to feel the pop of Ronan’s cock head as it pushed past the ring of muscle just before the back of his throat.

Ronan let out a grating cry.

Peter repeated the motion again and again, altering the depth of penetration and the focus of his stroking tongue to figure out what garnered the most broken moans.

However, before he could be rewarded for his skill, Ronan abruptly wrenched him off. Peter choked on strings of saliva and precome. His cheeks flushed a mottled red and tears filled his eyes as his stomach heaved at the abrupt disengagement. Sucking down his silicone toy hadn’t prepared him for anything quite so jarring.

“What gives?” Peter rasped after a moment. As he opened his eyes to level a glare at Ronan, his affront quickly petered out.

Above him, Ronan continued to one-handedly hold Peter’s head back by the hair. The other hand he firmly clenched around the base of his cock as it twitched with the beat of his heart. It attempted to give a weak spurt. He ground his teeth and hissed through them, lips curled back and looking for all the world like the fearsome Kree warrior that he was.

Peter could only stare. To think that he had brought Ronan–one of the most powerful men in the galaxy–to his figurative knees, made heat bloom in his chest. He, Peter Quill, had made an ex-Accuser nearly lose control with nothing more than willing lips and a skilled tongue. The realization made him smile hugely.

“By the Supreme, you are enchanting,” Ronan panted once he had regained his composure. He ran a thumb over Peter’s moist lips. “Unfortunately so.”

“You shoulda let me finish the job,” Peter griped puckishly.

Ronan raised one hairless brow. “And culminate the evening so quickly?” he retorted with an answering smile.

Chuckling, Peter released Ronan’s bruised buttocks and reclined back onto the bed, propping himself on one elbow. He took hold of his neglected shaft and gave it a couple of languorous pumps. “Well, come to think of it, I guess I could use a little attention myself,” he drawled.

His abdominals rippled each time he thrust up into his loose fist. His foreskin wrinkled and the purple flush of his cockhead peeked over his palm on the downstroke.

Ronan hungrily catalogued each nuance of Peter’s arousal. “It _is_ the anniversary of your birth,” he conceded.

Peter hummed happily. He swirled the pad of his thumb through the beads of precome on his tip, then pointedly brought his thumb to his mouth, never breaking eye contact. “Yup,” he agreed, popping the ‘p.’

The tattoos on Ronan’s sides began to gain a life of their own as his breath came more quickly. He arched over Peter’s prone body and planted his clenched fists in the bedding on either side of his hips. Nostrils flared and eyes half-hooded, he devoured the sight of every dip and curve of the sun-kissed skin that was so unlike his own.

“You are to be the ruin of me,” he growled, then sunk to his knees between Peter’s legs where they half hung off of the bed.

Peter propped himself up on both elbows and stared down in surprise. Blue hands smoothed down the smattering of hair on his thighs and spread them wide enough to accommodate his bulk. Ronan followed the cuts of Peter’s muscular quads back up and further still to map the topography of his stomach and chest. Then, he raked his nails back down, taking pleasure in the way Peter arched wantonly against the pain.

Ronan observed the red lines with satisfaction. Before Peter’s back had even touched the bed, Ronan began sucking a nomadic line of bruises up his inner thigh. Peter cried out and arched once again. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, deafening him to the baritone litany of praises that Ronan whispered into his skin.

Finally, after what felt like an intolerable amount of torture, one broad palm engulfed Peter’s tightened scrotum. The sudden warmth and gentle kneading was near enough to see him undone. Ronan chuckled huskily and dipped his tongue to trace the indent where Peter’s thigh met his body. Peter fidgeted and sucked in a ragged breath.

“Hey, that tickles,” he protested weakly. His hands briefly lifted to stroke Ronan’s bald head, but fell back to the sheets bonelessly when that same tongue detoured to lave at the root of his cock. He moaned brokenly and thrust his hips up as much as Ronan would allow.

“Oh, fuck, Ro. Please,” he begged, uncertain precisely what he was begging for.

Regardless, Ronan answered his entreaty with a broad stroke of his tongue up the pulsing vein on his cock belly. He kneaded the super-heated flesh already in his hand and used the other to gently tug Peter’s foreskin down and swallow him whole without warning. His lovely charge certainly hadn’t been the only one to do his research.

“Shit!” Peter’s shout echoed sharply in the small space.

Within a half dozen wet, sucking strokes, Peter’s scrotum began to pull up and away from Ronan’s grip. Peter thrashed wildly against the bed and kicked his legs up in an effort to wrap them around Ronan’s broad shoulders. Toes curling, he let them fall back to the floor and all but slammed his pelvis up towards Ronan’s mouth.

Ronan graciously let Peter fuck his throat for another couple of thrusts, then hollowed his cheeks, shoved his face down until his nose wrinkled against Peter’s stomach, and swallowed each bitter burst of release.

Forgetting himself, Peter grabbed Ronan’s head in a bid to go even deeper as he rode out the last few waves of orgasm. He received an amused hum when his fingers finally fell away, as boneless as the rest of him. Peter’s still twitching dick slipped from Ronan’s lips, leaving a glistening trail in its wake.

Ronan grasped Peter’s hips and pulled back, chest rising as he finally took a breath.

“Ah, the vaunted restraint of youth,” he teased.

“Yeah, so? What’s your excuse?” Peter quipped sharply in return. His body felt slow and heavy with satiation, but even the haze of post-coital bliss couldn’t slow his ever-mobile mouth.

Ronan let out a rich bark of laughter. He rose off of his abused knees and discarded the remainder of his clothing with all due alacrity, then joined Peter on the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his substantial weight as he crawled across it to lay on his side. With alarming strength, he hooked an arm beneath Peter and pulled him further onto the bed so that their legs could tangle like vines instead of hang half off the side. Peter gave a token complaint, then all but plastered himself against Ronan’s body. There was little give in the muscle beneath his hands.

“Seriously though, Ro. That was so fuckin’ hot. Totally unexpected, but hot,” he crooned as he nuzzled into Ronan’s neck.

“Unexpected? Surely you did not believe me to be a selfish lover.” Ronan gave his arm a reproving squeeze. The still hard length of his cock slid slickly against Peter’s thigh when he shifted back to lock eyes.

“’Course I did. When are you not a jerk?” Peter asked with a sly grin.

Growling, Ronan closed the space between them and silenced Peter’s idiocy with a brutal kiss. The taste of Peter’s come intermingling with the thick, ozone-like taste of Ronan’s mouth was an acquired taste, but one Peter certainly didn’t mind getting used to.

As he devoured Peter from within, Ronan slid a calloused palm down the sweaty curve of his spine, over the swell of his pert buttocks, and further still to hook behind his thigh. With no further cuing necessary, Peter threw his leg over Ronan’s hip. His inner thigh was sticky with the remnants of saliva and come, gluing him in place.

Tension built in the muscle beneath Peter’s hands where they clawed furrows into Ronan’s back. Before he could pull back and ask about it, Ronan reached down between them and took his turgid member in hand to angle it downward. He hissed against Peter’s lips when it snapped back up to rest in the spread cleft of his buttocks.

The insistent press of Ronan’s girthy dick cut through some of Peter’s pleasant fog.

“Oh hell, there’s no way that’s going to fit,” he moaned as he pecked the corner of Ronan’s mouth. He knew intimately that it could, in fact, fit with a little finesse. He really would have to repay his debt to Sephro.

“You should have considered the repercussions prior to pursuing me,” Ronan retorted. He nipped at Peter’s jaw and continued placing small bites down the curve of his neck, soothing each sudden jolt of pain with his tongue. The path of his teeth would surely be tender come morning.  

“See,” Peter moaned as he bucked his returning erection into Ronan’s stomach. “You don’t know how not to be a jerk.” Contrary to his words, he bared his throat to accept the abuse. Each rumbling growl as Ronan bit down harder had Peter undulating against the sopping wet cock occupying the underside of his scrotum and cleft of his ass. A dribble of fluid rolled down his thigh.

The thick finger suddenly circling his hole came as a surprise. Peter jolted. Though he had done the same thing to himself more times in the past couple of years than he could count, the feel of someone else touching him there so intimately was rather alien. Regardless, it took only a second for him to eagerly push his hips back. There was already so much lubricant on his skin that Ronan’s finger slipped in easily up to the second knuckle and further still with only a little bit of force.

The flutter of Peter’s body around him made Ronan clench his teeth. As a Kree, restraint in all things was a vaunted skill, one which Peter apparently delighted in tearing apart at the seams. He drove his finger as deep as it would go for only a couple of strokes, then added a second finger, perhaps too quickly. Regardless, Peter bore down and opened to him without a word. He butted his head against Ronan’s neck and buried his yelp in a mouthful of blue flesh.

They groaned together.

Ronan ground his erection against his own fingers to collect his slick and pressed in yet another finger. Peter’s body resisted the too quick preparation at first, but he took the burning ache without complaint. Ronan was obviously hanging onto his self-control by tenterhooks. Frankly, Peter wouldn’t have had it any other way.   

“Yeah,” he whispered, dragging a sloppy kiss along the broad line of Ronan’s jaw. “Fuck me, Ro.”

At that, Ronan froze. His eyelids fell shut and his lips slack. He ever so slowly twisted his wrist to wring out one last cry from Peter before he pulled out completely. Peter’s body clenched at the feeling of emptiness after having been so gloriously filled.

Ronan wiped his hand clean on the bedspread behind him, then rolled their bodies such that Peter lay on his back, hips pinned beneath Ronan’s massive bulk.

“Say it again,” Ronan requested from where he supported himself on locked arms.

Peter had never heard him ask for anything so sweetly. He smiled up at him, delighting in the wash of blue skin that was liberally claimed by black ceremonial paint and ink. The Kree was breathtaking.

“Ronan. Please, fuck me now.”

Ronan shuddered once, then crashed down like a wave. Peter lifted from the bed and met him halfway, throwing his arms around Ronan’s thick neck and pulling him down in a near painful clash of teeth and tongues. Every breath Ronan took was hard won and burned in his lungs.

“Peter, oh, my Star-Lord,” he grunted, every word reverently released between a fervent press of lips. He rutted against Peter’s bottom until they slid up the bed with the force of it. A blessing of his youth, Peter’s renewed erection smeared precome between them. Ronan eased Peter’s thighs up and folded them to rest against his chest. Never before had he been quite so thankful for Peter’s surprising flexibility.

Without bothering to break away from stealing Peter’s breath, Ronan hollowed his lower back and blindly undulated his hips in search of the place his body so desperately yearned to be sheathed. After a handful of failed attempts, he wrenched his hand from Peter’s jaw and reached down to cusp his twitching cock. He lined it up quickly from there, and thrust forward with an inhuman roar.

The sudden, burning ache of being filled by far too much, far too quickly set Peter bowing towards the ceiling with eyes wide, unseeing, and jaw dropped in a silent scream.

Ronan hissed and forced his desperate body to stop, still only half sheathed. His arms trembled with the force of his restraint. Beneath him, Peter took a great gasp of breath and began to shake. Horrified, Ronan cupped his jaw tenderly and called his name, only to be interrupted by wheezing laughter. Peter all but howled in his mirth at Ronan’s comically raised brow. Each peal of merriment made his anus clench around the massive shaft penetrating him.

“Oh my god, dude, your face!”

Gritting his teeth, Ronan snapped his hips and embedded another fat ridge of cock into Peter’s pliant body. Peter’s laughter abruptly devolved into a visceral groan.

“You are absolutely insufferable, boy,” Ronan bit out. He punctuated each word with a savage thrust until he was completely hilted, Peter’s buttocks cool and damp against his own super-heated skin. They stayed there for a long moment and simply shared breath while fire sang in their veins.

“I know,” Peter admitted quietly. He traced the lines of paint on Ronan’s face, just as he had nearly ten years ago. “But you love me for it.”

Closing his eyes, Ronan parted Peter’s thighs to either side of his waist and sank down to place a chaste kiss on Peter’s brow. Peter’s legs naturally wrapped around him and pulled him in close. Being so intimately connected felt like coming home.

“Perhaps,” Ronan replied softly. It was as close to an admission as Peter was ever likely to get. But, the tender moment could not last when faced with the all-consuming drive to finally consummate the intimacy that had been denied for so long.

The tightness surrounding Ronan’s shaft resisted and clung at his ridges when he pulled back. He managed to work a scant couple of inches free with a lurid pop, then smoothly reentered him. Peter’s head fell back to the bed as he rocked with it. Riding Sephro’s molded silicone toy had not prepared him for the way Ronan had suddenly swelled even larger within him. Nor could it have simulated the sheer force with which that brutal cock could be driven into him. He struggled to stay coherent despite the starbursts in his eyes and the heady amalgamation of pain and pleasure in his most intimate of places. His cock throbbed in sympathy.    

Ronan repeated the motion, patiently pulling out further, only to snap the full heft of his girth back in.

“Fuuuck.” Peter near sobbed as he held on tightly to Ronan’s shoulders. His fingernails left imprints of half-moons across the breadth of that broad back. The smell of Ronan’s arousal thickened the air and seeped into Peter’s skin. The furnace of his body set Peter’s blood to boiling. Sweat beaded across his skin, but he could do nothing for it except clutch the mountain of a man even tighter. It was simultaneously too much and not nearly enough.

Satisfied that Peter wasn’t likely to break, Ronan began to piston his hips in earnest, building up to an absolutely punishing rhythm. His muscle rippled beneath Peter’s arms and calves. The strength that was so oft used to break his enemies was instead channeled towards tearing Peter in twain and rebuilding him anew.

Breathy grunts were the only outward sign of his exertion, but Peter could tell that Ronan couldn’t keep the pace going for very long. There was too much pent up passion between them for it to last.

Capturing his already swollen lips, Ronan thrust his long tongue in to map Peter’s mouth until spittle ran down their chins. He rumbled in satisfaction and surged forward. The force of his passion slammed Peter’s head deeply into the bedding. The wide, blunt head of his cock mercilessly bullied its way into Peter’s body. It was only the fact that he was pinned down by an unforgiving wall of Kree that kept Peter from being propelled off of the bed by the power of each wet slap of hips.

Peter eagerly tried to give as good as he got, biting and sucking at Ronan’s tongue and meeting each thrust as it came. Ronan hitched Peter’s thighs up higher on his waist.  

The new angle of Ronan’s cock flared brightly in the pit of Peter’s stomach until he was blinded by the pleasure of it all. He furiously tried to blink away the afterimage of blue, to no avail.

“Ro. Oh my god, Ro,” he gasped. His reverent entreaty was a heady thing. Ronan pummeled into him, the space between their hips nearly flooded by gushing precome. Another brutal thrust dragged the half dozen ridges on Ronan’s textured cock across Peter’s sweet spot one after the other until he screamed.

The wet friction on his dick and the absolutely brutal stimulation of his prostate proved to be too powerful a combination. Peter’s toes curled and his muscles locked tight as orgasm swept its way up his limbs to settle in his loins, then, after a brief moment of possibility, it crashed over him like a wave. He clutched Ronan tightly enough to bruise even that strong flesh and howled into his mouth.

Ronan rode out the addictive undulations of Peter’s internal walls, suctioned tightly to his cock, and let go of his own restraint. He latched onto Peter’s hair and spared a hand to clamp their hips tightly together. Each pulse of his own release hammered throughout his body, so powerful that he felt one of his hearts stutter. He filled Peter completely. With nowhere else to go, come seeped out from where they were joined and stained the linens dark blue.

A full minute later, his body finally released him from the throes of passion.

Too satiated to care about the mess they had made, Peter reclaimed his limbs and gently disengaged. Ronan’s softening dick eased from him with a lewd slurp. The gush of come to follow should have been disconcerting, but it wasn’t.

Ronan bonelessly collapsed to the bed and pulled Peter, unresisting, against his side. They lay in the silent post-coital glow for several long minutes. Everything was sticky and smelled like sex. Peter couldn’t remember ever having been so content.

Surprisingly, it was Ronan who spoke first. “Happy birthday, Peter.” He turned his head to murmur into Peter’s tousled hair. He followed his well wishes with a tender, but chaste kiss that said more than his words ever could.

Blinking furiously, Peter buried his unmitigated joy into the broad expanse of Ronan’s chest.


	8. The 80's (Age 19)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter announces his relationship with Ronan to Yondu in the stupidest way possible. Heads roll. Rated M

# 

The 80's  (Age 19)

 

 

 

“I’m gonna do it, Ro. I’m gonna tell Yondu,” Peter announced, his voice muffled by a mountain of pillows and linens.

Without deigning to turn away from his sector scan readouts, Ronan shifted in his chair and uttered a noncommittal grunt. “You will do no such thing.”

He motioned towards the wavering image of an undesignated spiral galaxy projected onto the holo-field hovering over his desk. The spectral image cast one last, lingering flash of fairy lights, then fell dark around his outstretched fingers.

“Come on, man. It was our one year anniversary yesterday,” Peter retorted as he languorously clawed his way out from beneath the sheets. He propped himself up on his elbows and blearily scanned the surfaces of Ronan’s spartan bedroom. Satisfied that the Kree-lar promise wheel Ronan had given him the previous night was still in its place of honor on the dresser, he flopped back to the mattress with a noisy yawn.

“We’ve got to tell him sometime, you know.”

Ronan abruptly pushed his chair away from his work station. The floor grate protested with a piercing squeal. “We will reveal the truth of our relationship to Yondu when I see fit,” he pronounced, voice still gravelly from sleep. 

Light from the bedside table danced across his bare body as he stood and stalked toward the bed with predacious grace. Peter eyed each ripple of muscle with unabashed appreciation.

Smiling at the memories of a gloriously sleepless night, he finally managed to tear his gaze away from the dangerous V of Ronan’s abdominals in favor of meeting his gaze. “What, on his deathbed?” he asked teasingly. 

Ronan cocked his head as if the answer were obvious. “Precisely,” he rumbled with a sharp grin.

Peter’s mountain of blankets was abruptly torn from the bed despite his loud and immediate protest. He scrabbled after them to no avail. Every attempt to retrieve his warm haven was summarily blocked by Ronan’s bulk.

“And, until his untimely end arises, you will hold your tongue lest I remove it,” Ronan continued as he forcibly wrestled Peter down against the mattress and took the linens’ place of honor between his thighs. 

Chest heaving, Peter put forth a token struggle, then settled beneath him with an amused chortle.  

“Aw, I know you can threaten me better than that, babe. You would miss this tongue even more than I would,” he teased, letting his legs splay further, in open invitation, and wriggling his hips. The heavy length of Ronan’s body molded against and around him, burning hotter than normal flesh should. In direct juxtaposition to his preternatural heat, the remnants of their prior lovemaking lingered, cool and tacky between them.

“A salient point,” Ronan observed.

Though it was difficult to focus on the handsome blue features as they drew closer, Peter found that he could neither close his eyes nor look away. His breath was stolen in a brutal kiss that heralded yet another little death to come.

 

***

 

Hours later, Peter ambled onto the bridge, boisterously swinging the cord of his Walkman. 

The dulcet tones of  _ Cherry Bomb _ bolstered his already elevated mood. Even his crewmates’ disapproving stares couldn’t bring him down. Peter swirled around Kraglin, arms spread wide, and grapevined away with a practiced flourish. He could feel the magnitude of Kraglin’s exasperation heavy on his back. 

“Yondu!” he exclaimed, voice projected loudly enough to make the nearby Ravagers wince. He collapsed against the back of the command chair and drummed out the last few beats of the song. “How’s it goin’, man? Feels like it’s been ages.”

Momentarily startled, Yondu schooled his expression and turned to stare up at Peter with a crooked grin. The insistent flashing of his command console went ignored. “Yer awfully cheery today,” he drawled.

Peter slid around the metal chair back and half sat on the armrest. The metal strut dug into his hip uncomfortably, but he couldn’t be bothered to readjust himself. “What? Can’t a guy say ‘hi’ to his favorite father figure?” His comment elicited a raised eyebrow from Yondu and a snort of derision from where Ronan sat, tending to his own station two paces away. 

“Boy, you just get laid or something?” Yondu asked suspiciously.

“Well, it’s funny you ask.” Peter flicked a stray piece of lint from Yondu’s shoulder and leaned in, conspiratorially close. “I got a question for you. You got a minute to chat?”

Before Yondu had a chance to respond with a suitably clever quip, Ronan cleared his throat. “He most assuredly does not. The Captain has pressing matters to attend to, wherein which ‘inane Terran rambling’ does not factor. I ordered you to report to hangar five for engine maintenance, Quill. I suggest you do so,” he snapped, then continued tapping his nails against the screen of his console as if nothing was amiss. 

Yondu glanced at his uncharacteristically irascible first mate, then back at Peter with his lips pulled down in an exaggerated frown. He shrugged and gestured helplessly towards Ronan. “Looks like you and me best do what he says, now, unless you want your first go at catchin’ to be a Kree boot up your ass,” he said in a stage whisper loud enough for everyone on the bridge to hear. A collective laugh made its rounds. 

Peter rolled his eyes and scoffed. “It’s not like it would be the first time,” he muttered, purposefully leaving his implication vague.

“Yeah, yeah. Get outta here, son.” Yondu waved him off and returned to scanning the readouts on his display panel.

The lingering crew members ambled throughout the room in a practiced, but still seemingly haphazard, shuffle. An amalgamation of various states of hygiene and alien scent markers thickened the body-warmed cabin. Peter breathed it all in and smiled at the comfortable familiarity. He draped one arm along the back of the Captain’s chair and continued to occupy the armrest, ignoring Yondu’s suggestion and Ronan’s thinly veiled threat.  

Alien symbols flashed across Yondu’s console and spun in place for a brief second while Peter’s universal translator processed the odd syntax. Lulled into languor by the buzz of background chatter and the pleasant heat, he began to hum and tap out a rhythm on the chair back. 

“Papa don’t preach, I’m in trouble deep. Papa, don’t preach, I’ve been losing sleep,” he began to sing softly. He glanced over at Ronan’s backlit profile with half-lidded eyes. His voice trailed off for a moment, then quickly rejoined the rhythm of his tapping fingers. “Daddy, daddy, if you could only see... just how good he’s been treating me.”

Unbeknownst to him, Yondu’s hands stilled.

Peter continued, unabated. “You’d give it some blessing right now, ’cause we are in love,” he sang, voice rich and melodic despite his attempts to hover below the ambient noise level. He studied the strong glide of tendons in Ronan’s exposed forearms, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, and the curve of full lips pressed thin in concentration. “We are in love.”

Ronan glanced over upon noting the confessional lyric, Kree hearing being what it was, and blinked slowly. His eyes flicked down the line of Peter’s body and promptly returned to his console with no tell of his appreciation other than the subtle twitch of a repressed smile. 

Peter continued to sing, perhaps a bit more heartily, until Yondu’s raised voice brought him to a stuttering halt. “You son of a bitch!” Yondu hissed, eyes locked on Ronan. He abruptly pushed up from his chair, brow craggy with the force of his disgust. 

The sharp snap of his leathers slapping against Peter’s leg in passing jolted him off the armrest. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s the deal, man?” he asked in a wide-eyed panic. Nervous energy had him gesticulating wildly as he caught himself with only a minor stumble.

The bustle around them stilled immediately. 

“I’ma give you a head start on account o’ you bein’ such a damn good first mate all this time,” Yondu stated darkly, eyes trained on Ronan. He eased his coat flap back behind his hip to reveal the quivering tip of his yaka arrow.  

“An affordance that I will respectfully decline.” Ronan sighed. With a final flurry of keystrokes, he eased his station console away and rose to his substantial height. Only then did he give Yondu his singular attention. His narrowed eyes glinted from amidst the wash of his ceremonial paint.  

“Peter, son. You need to get on down to the engine bay,” Yondu ground out, never taking his eyes off of Ronan. 

Peter glanced back and forth between them. “Wait, what’s goin’ on? I don’t think — ” 

His stumbling response was quickly aborted by Ronan’s deep baritone as it resonated throughout the bridge. “That is precisely the problem, Peter. You were warned to hold your council. You did not. Now, your Captain has provided you with orders. Perhaps you will defer to  _ his _ wisdom at the very least and obey them. Go,” he stated gravely. A Chitauri flagship could not have budged the Kree from where he stood, feet shoulder-width apart and shoulders braced against the impending onslaught of Yondu’s judgement.

Peter noted the proud, firm set of his jaw and swallowed heavily. He whipped back around and closed the distance between Yondu and himself, palms raised before him in an attempt at placation.

“Yondu…”

“Kraglin! You get my boy where he’s s’posed to be. The rest of you lot clear the hell out.” 

The Ravagers exited the bridge in a rush, flowing around Ronan and Yondu whilst affording them a wide berth. The cacophony of metal-shod soles was near deafening. Kraglin loped over after a beat of hesitation and took a hold of Peter’s arm. “C’mon, Quill,” he whispered, eyebrows nearly disappearing into his receding hairline. He tried to tug Peter towards the hatch, but was summarily shrugged off.

“What the hell? No! What’s gotten into you, Yondu?” he asked plaintively.

“Peter,” Yondu growled, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. 

As the last of the Ravagers scrambled out of the bridge, Kraglin insistently tugged at Peter’s coat once again, to no avail. “Quill, we really gotta go,” he muttered, eyeing his Captain wearily.

“Like hell we do! I ain’t goin’ nowhere until someone explains what’s goin’ on!”

Ronan’s jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth in a desperate bid for patience. He strode over to the pair of them and only absently noted the way Kraglin stumbled in his haste to move out of the way. Without fanfare, Ronan took them both by the upper arm and shoved them out into the empty corridor. The hatch swept shut between them with a hissed finality. He ignored Peter’s muffled screams and pounding fists in favor of turning back to face the consequences of his misconduct.

“You been with my boy?” Yondu asked, voice light and conversational despite the threat inherent in his clenched fists.

“I have,” Ronan admitted.

“How long?” The question hung pendulously among the beeps and whistles of the instruments of the bridge.

Ronan briefly closed his eyes and took a deep, fortifying breath. “One year, twenty hours, and thirty-one minutes, in Terran units.”

The blow to his solar plexus was as unexpected as it was sudden. His breath left him in one loud expulsion and he couldn’t help but curl around the throbbing pain just below his ribcage. His diaphragm spasmed and refused to respond. Flashbacks of waking up to the burning ache of the ventilator so many years ago arose, sharp and smelling of anesthetic. He gasped futily while fending off Yondu’s follow-up jab. Black spots began to invade his vision, cavorting merrily as if to mock his weakness.

Despite his disorientation, Ronan managed to duck and spin long enough to strategically maneuver the command chair between Yondu and himself. Only then was he able to lift his arms above his head and suck in great gouts of air.

He was given no quarter.

“You sick son of a bitch!” Yondu spat out before hurdling over the chair with his arm cocked back and ready. His typically languid manner belied the Centaurian strength and speed that simmered just beneath his skin, a strength that hit home with devastating power.

“Damn it, Udonta!” Ronan roared as he staggered back beneath the weight of the Centaurian’s blow. Blood bloomed, copious and hot on his temple. It proceeded to swiftly coat his neck like questing fingers and near blinded him as he twisted his body to ward off an unexpectedly sharp elbow strike to his gut.

Yondu continued his assault, teeth bared and face screwed up in his fury. Ronan weathered the volley, grunting at each blow. His skin burned and his ribs ached. The metallic scent of blood and sweat filled his nostrils, stirring the predator within.

“You will desist immediately,” he warned, chest heaving and fists clenched at his sides.

His command resulted in no more than a dangerously amused bark of laughter. “Stop? Now why would I do a stupid thing like that? I shoulda left your useless, drunken ass on Knowhere where I found it, ya great, blue bastard,” Yondu pronounced. Each word was punctuated by the meaty impact of knuckles on bare flesh.

Ronan fell backwards against one of the work consoles and half-sat on the navigation panel. A loud and worrisome crack sounded from beneath his hip. “Yondu, you have been sufficiently warned,” he growled as he awkwardly steadied himself.

The glow of the work station illuminated every crooked tooth in Yondu’s rictus grin as he hovered above Ronan. He scanned the exposed line of taut and quivering muscle from Ronan’s neck to his low-slung belt, taking satisfaction in the blooming purple bruises. “You touched my boy. You deserve every lick you get, son.”

“Peter is not your—” Ronan began.

Quick as a snake strike, Yondu slapped him across the face, leaving behind a smeared trail of blood and black paint. “You shut yer goddamn trap,” he ground out.

Ronan reeled to the side from the force of the blow. With a guttural bellow, he exploded from his graceless sprawl. He planted one massive palm against his Captain’s chest and shoved him clear across the bridge. Yondu rebounded off a workstation, leathers flapping wildly, and spun to catch himself on the arm of his chair. They eyed each other wearily.

A series of fist falls and muffled yells at the hatchway continued to buffet them from behind. Neither man paid the commotion any heed.

“Peter is not your sole responsibility, Udonta,” Ronan continued as he took the momentary reprieve to dash the congealing blood from his eye. “And you cannot provide all that his contentment requires.”

“Oh? What you got to offer him, son?” Yondu asked, voice deceptively soft and arms spread wide as he straightened his spine and stalked forward. Each heavy heel strike resonated throughout the bridge. He drew up a hand’s-breadth from Ronan’s chest and glared up in challenge.“A family? A home? Someone to love? He’s already got all that right here,” he continued, fiercely slapping his own chest. The height disparity did nothing to diminish the inherent threat in his furrowed brow and laser focus. “So, the hell do you think you can give my boy that his daddy can’t?”

The muscle of Ronan’s broad jaw bulged with the force of his restraint. “Protection,” he pronounced.

Scoffing, Yondu waved him off. “Kid’s a Ravager; got all the protectin’ he needs. Try again.”

Ronan narrowed his eyes, bloodied lips pulled back in a snarling grimace. “Devotion,” he ground out.

“Ain’t worth the data pad it’s projected on. Gotta do better than that.”

“Respect,” Ronan continued.

Snorting derisively, Yondu fell back a step and shot Ronan a lopsided grin. At the sight of Ronan’s stoic expression, he let loose a sharp bark of laughter. “You’re actually serious,” he concluded, bemused. In an instant, his faux good humor fell away. “Respect? The hell do you know about showin’ respect,  _ Accuser _ ?” Spittle flew from his mouth with the force of his callous rejoinder.

A red hailing beacon flashed on the forward view port behind Ronan, casting the taut line of his shoulders in relief. It went ignored by both men as they continued to stare each other down. Ronan was the first to break the silence as a low growl settled in his chest, the sound redolent of a beast.

“I am no Accuser, as you well know,” he hissed, slamming his fist against his own leather pauldron in a fit of pique. “Nor do you have the trappings of a Kree judiciary. So tell me,  _ Captain, _ as a man unfettered by claims to honor, who are you to so freely rain down judgment? Peter is cognizant of what our joining provides, and, as the autonomous young man that he has grown to be, has deemed my offering sufficient. He has reached the age of maturity established by his species and is surely capable of choosing his own life’s course without consideration for your opinion on the matter.”

With an inarticulate yell, Yondu gathered Ronan’s lapels in his fists, bearing down until his knuckles turned white. “I don’t care whether that dumbass is nineteen or a hundred and nineteen! He’s off-fuckin’-limits to the likes of you, ya cradle-robbin’ son of a bitch,” he roared, the smell of hours-old liquor on his breath. “Quill’s got enough shit to deal with without you addin’ this special brand of daddy issues on top of it!”

In the span of a heartbeat, Ronan was on him. The hull reverberated with the force of the impact as Ronan single handedly lifted Yondu by the neck and propelled him into the bulkhead. He viciously pinned the Captain between the wall and his forearm, leaning close enough to brush noses.

Yondu coughed and struggled against the vice around his throat, but the overwhelming tide of Ronan’s anger proved to be insurmountable.

“I have allowed you the pleasure of listening to your own voice long enough. Now, you will curb your churlish tongue and take heed,” Ronan pronounced with steel in his tone. Despite his burning lungs, Yondu stilled long enough to meet his unwavering glare with one of his own.

“For eleven years I have forfeited my life in favor of fostering this young man’s transition into a figure worthy of admiration and respect. My time, my safety, my solitude, and my reputation, all surrendered freely and without regret for the recalcitrant Terran pest that you abducted from his home world on a whim,” Ronan rumbled in a deep, rich baritone that brokered no allowance for interruption.

“A pest whom—despite nearly driving me to an early grave on more occasions than I care to recall—managed to infiltrate the fortress wherein my heart was cloistered. Just as I pledged myself to Peter’s care as a child, I will continue to uphold this vow until the ravages of time claim me. You question what I am willing to give him? The answer is and will always remain ‘everything.’”

Silence hung between them for a long, pregnant moment. Finally, Yondu’s palms rose in supplication and he willed his body to go slack. Only then did Ronan take a step back and allow him to slide back down to his feet. Yondu leaned forward and braced his hands on his knees as he struggled to swallow great gasps of air. He coughed mightily and studied Ronan from beneath hooded brows.

“Them’s real pretty words, but,” he began, only to be abruptly cut off by the warmth of Ronan’s hand on his chest.

“My word is my bond. You would do well to note that Kree do not take commitments lightly,” Ronan stated with solemnity. Black blood continued to ooze down his neck and coat in meandering rivulets from his prior injuries.

Yondu eyed the swath of fluid where it cut across the Ravager patch emblazoned on Ronan’s breast. “Yeah, guess that’s true,” he reluctantly admitted. “But, I should throw you outta the damn airlock anyway for threatenin’ your Captain like this.”

Ronan bowed his head at the return of Yondu’s gruff, but playful, tone. With sure fingers, he corrected Yondu’s skewed collar and brushed aside the imagined dust from his shoulders.

“Attempt to do so, and the Ravagers will find themselves in need of a new Captain all together.”

Despite the altercation, he found that he needn’t feign his amusement. For a long moment, they simply exchanged dangerous smiles, all curled lips and crooked teeth.

The cacophony of blows coming from the hatchway died down for a brief moment, then suddenly resumed with concussive force. Peter’s shoulder was likely going to be black and blue come morning.

Yondu could only chuckle and hang his head. He scrubbed his face with his palms and swept them over his bald head to settle on the back of his neck. The movement made his coat flare wide, like the hood of a cobra.

“You better take care of my idiot boy, now, ya hear? If you harm so much as a hair on that ugly, Terran head, there ain’t nowhere in the galaxy you gonna be able to hide from me,” Yondu drawled. He rubbed absently at his stubble and shook his head, satisfied that the conversation was at an end.

Ronan wiped away the patina of blood from his lips and stared down at where it smeared across his work-hardened hand. “Harm him? If anyone has cause for concern regarding their mortality, it is myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end for now. I'll be writing one-shots for this AU in the future. Chapter 9 is going to be an illustration of a family photograph. Thank you to all of my readers and especially to those who offered such kind words of support along the way!!!


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